"When he gets through, his throat will be like a lime-kiln. There is a bucket of water down there. I will put in it the coffee we left from breakfast and leave it in his cabin. It will be the best thing for him if he will drink it. But he'll be crazy for rum---- I'll take you back and get the coffee. I'm sorry you came."

There was strong disapproval in his tone, but she did not resent it.

After all, his thought was entirely for her in the matter.

"You're sure he won't fly at you?" she asked anxiously.

"He's much too busy with the birds. Besides, I shall not touch him or speak to him. It is best to leave him to himself. We will leave some food by him also," and she obediently let herself down before him on to the raft.

"It does seem absurd----" she began impulsively, as they joggled along.

"To keep him alive so that he may try again to kill us,"--he nodded.

"I know. But there it is, as the country-folk say. However, he won't live long if he keeps on at the rum. As soon as he gets better he'll go straight out to the pile to get more, unless he's too weak. It's terribly wasteful work, what he's at, and no food to work on."

"Whether it's wrong or not, I cannot help wishing he would die," she said pa.s.sionately. "It is too dreadful."

"I don't want his blood on my hands if I can help it," he said briefly.

But he felt as she did.

XLIII

After carrying supplies to the mate, he came back for her, and they went ash.o.r.e for fresh water, and he providently secured a couple more rabbits.

The Girl was very quiet, depressed, and very unlike her usual bright self. But he was not surprised. Her anxiety for the future was enough to account for it, and there was, besides, the reaction from the strenuous upsetting through which they had just pa.s.sed.

Each morning he went across to see how the sick man was getting on, and she let him go alone, but followed him with anxious eyes, and stood in the bows watching till she saw him safely on his way back.

On the third day they took advantage of the enemy's enforced inactivity to go out to the pile and make good the losses caused by the fire. And all the time they were away The Girl was in a state of dire anxiety lest he should have discovered their absence and got across and fired their ship. But to her great relief it was there all right when they got back, and showed no signs of visitation.

On the fourth morning Wulf found his patient sufficiently recovered to be spoken to plainly as to the future, and he did not mince matters.

While he spoke, the mate lay watching him through almost closed eyes, just one narrow line between the heavy lids catching the light from the port and imparting a singularly sinister look to the haggard face. The veiled eyes watched him cautiously, charged with what?--suspicion?

hatred? treachery? All these, Wulf imagined. But they gave no sign.

They were like the eyes of a snake, of a caged beast being rated by its keeper.

"Your dastardly attempt on us failed," said Wulf, to the steely glint of the black soul behind the narrowed lids. "And now,--understand!

You are outside the pale. Leave us alone and we leave you alone.

Interfere further with us and I will kill you as I would a dangerous beast. Now you are warned, and your blood be on your own head."

The other made no sign. The narrow gleam of the dark eyes out of the rigid impa.s.sivity of the dark face was more bodeful than a torrent of curses.

As he left the ship, Wulf picked up and took with him the only two axes he could find. Magnanimity had its limits, but it was wasted here.

"Well?" asked The Girl anxiously, when he returned.

"He is almost himself again, but very much weakened of course. I have given him final warning that if he molests us further I shall kill him."

"It would have been simpler to let him die."

"Simpler--yes, but I could not bring myself to it. We'll fight him fair if fight we must."

The weather still kept dull and gray and heavy, with a reserve of menace and malice in it akin to that of the mate. The sky was veiled with ever-hurrying clouds. The sea was smooth, with something of treachery in its sullen quietude, as though it were only biding its time to break out again and do its worst.

The following morning, to their surprise, they saw Macro start out early for the wreckage. And Wulf, watching him grimly, said, "He's after his poison. And now he'll probably drink himself to death. It's amazing the hold it takes on a man. He won't trouble us much longer."

They spent the day ash.o.r.e, but the vivacity and enjoyment of that other day were awanting. Perhaps it was the cheerless weather,--the physical and mental strain of these later days,--the thought that their devil was loosed again,--anyhow, a subtle sense of foreboding. Whatever it was it weighed upon their spirits, and a long tramp up the beach, in forlorn hope of meeting Mistress Seal again, did not succeed in raising them.

"What is it, I wonder?" said The Girl. "Something is going to happen, I know. I have felt like this before, and always something dreadful has followed."

"But you never knew what, beforehand? Perhaps you have the gift of prevision,--the second sight."

"I may have, but it doesn't go so far as to explain things. I just feel anxious for it to be over and done with."

"What?"

"What's coming, whatever it is."

"We must be extra careful for a time, till you are sure the trouble is past," he said, with a smile, but he felt the weight on his spirits as she did.

Physically, however, their long tramp did them good, and they returned home with famous appet.i.tes.

"I wonder if he's back yet," said The Girl, as they were paddling to the ship. There was no doubt as to where her fears centred.

"I don't see the raft. We'll see better from the deck," and when they had climbed aboard they looked at once towards the spit and saw the mate's raft still lying there. He was not back yet.

They ate, and rested, and until the darkness swallowed the spit, the raft still lay there.

"He's staying late," said Wulf. "Maybe he's broached a keg and taken too much. It would be what I would expect from him under the circ.u.mstances."

He patrolled the deck, after she had gone to bed, listening for the sound of the mate's oar. But he heard nothing, and at last made up his mind that the fellow had probably waited too late and had made himself snug out there for the night, though, for himself, the idea would not have commended itself. There was little danger, however, of his coming across in the dark, so he went down and slept soundly at the foot of the companion-steps.

All the next day they were on the look-out for him, but he did not come.

Wulf had told her of his idea that he had probably found means of pa.s.sing the night out there, in which case he would no doubt put in another long day rooting for treasure. So that it was not until night had fallen again, and the raft still lay waiting on the spit, that he decided in his own mind that something was wrong.

"I shall go across to the pile in the morning to find out," he said, as they sat by the fire.

"I shall go with you."

"I would very much sooner you stopped here."

"And suppose it was all a trick on his part. He may be hiding in the sandhills. He would watch you go and then come out on me. No," with a very decided shake of the head, "I go with you."

So, in the morning, they set off, walked along the spit to the western point and waded and swam to the wreckage, keeping a keen look-out for first sight of the mate.

"Those hideous birds!" panted The Girl, as the skirling, squabbling crew swooped and hovered over the far end of the pile.

"We'll keep as far away from them as possible," and they crept up at a distance, and he proceeded to make a raft, since a supply of further stores was needed to make good their losses by the fire.