Maid of the Mist Part 28

XXIX

Next morning Macro went off as usual to the wreck-pile, and Miss Drummond set to work on her dressmaking. Wulfrey hoisted up out of the hold for her such pieces of silk and linen as she required, and scoured a couple of the smallest needles with sand till they were usable.

Then, with the sharpest knife he could find among their stock, he cut out on the deck, under her direction, various lengths and designs which to him were meaningless, but replete with possibilities from her point of view.

But when, presently, she saw him preparing to go ash.o.r.e for water and rabbits, she threw down her needle and said, "I will go also. You will not mind?"

"On the contrary, I shall mind very much. I shall feel honoured by your company. It is a pleasure to have someone to talk to again," and he helped her down on to the raft, and thought how much less interesting shoes were than little naked feet.

"Do you not then talk much with Mr Macro?"

"Sometimes, and sometimes we hardly spoke all day."

"You quarrelled?"

"Hardly that, but ... well, we had not very much in common, you see.

His mind was always full of his discoveries out there, and one got rather tired of it at times."

"I do not think I shall like him as much as I thought."

"Why that? I'm sorry if I have said anything that seems to reflect on him in any way."

"I am used to judging for myself. It is a look that comes into his eyes at times,--like a horse when it is going to bite. No,"--with a decided little nod,--"I shall not like him as much as I hoped; and I am sorry, for I ought to feel grateful to him for pulling me out of the water."

"I'm glad you are feeling grateful for being alive, anyway," he said, with a smile. "That is better than being doubtful about it."

"It is better to be alive than dead. And if we have to live here all our lives--very well, we must put up with it. And if you and he die, and I am left all alone, and get old and sick, as you said yesterday, I will make an end of myself. I was thinking about it all night except when I was sleeping."

"I'm sorry to have troubled you so. We will hope for better things.

Anyway I have no intention of dying for some time to come, if I can help it."

"You must not," she said, with sudden deep earnestness. "I count it G.o.d's good mercy that you are here, for I can trust you."

"I am used to being trusted," he said quietly.

"I know. I can see it.... If I had been all alone ... with n.o.body but him ... But, no! I could not..."

"I don't know that there is any harm in him."

She sat nodding her pretty head meaningly.... "You have not seen men loosed from all restraints as I have. I was but a child and did not fully understand. But I see their faces and their eyes still, fierce and wild and hungry for other than bread. When men are answerable to none but themselves they become wild beasts and devils."

"It is a hard saying."

"But it is true. I have seen it."

"And women?"

"They are as bad, but in a different way. Oh, they are terrible."

"And you and I and Macro here? To whom are we answerable?" he asked, to sound her to the depths.

"He is answerable to you," she said quickly. "You and I are answerable to one another, and to G.o.d, and to ourselves--to all that has made us what we are. I do not think you could trespa.s.s outside all that, any more than I could."

"I do not think I could. I am honoured by your confidence in me."

He helped her ash.o.r.e, and they filled the buckets at the pools, and then she expressed a wish to see something more of this sandbank where they might have to pa.s.s the rest of their lives.

So they threaded their way among the hummocks to the northern sh.o.r.e, and, at the first green valley they came to, she went down on her knees and examined carefully the nestling growths on which the rabbits fed, and found among them certain pungent little plants which she thought might serve for flavouring, and they gathered enough to experiment with.

The firm smooth tidal beach, with the ripples creaming up it in sibilant whispers tempted her to bare feet, and she handed him her shoes and splashed along as joyously as a child.

"It is a most delightful island," she said. "I do not think I would ever tire of it."

"Oh, yes, you would. It is all just the same, you see. You can walk on and on like this and round the other side for forty or fifty miles, and every bit of it is just like the rest."

"I think it is beautiful."

"It gets monotonous in time. The only diversion is the pile of wreckage down yonder. That is constantly changing and growing."

"And discovering more skeletons! It feels odd to think that I should have been one myself if you two had not happened to be here."

"I'm sure it feels very much nicer to be comfortably clothed with flesh," and glancing at her supple grace and entrancing bare feet and ankles, he found himself profoundly grateful for the facts of the case.

The thought of her as a skeleton was eminently distasteful to him.

"Yes, it is better. Dead bodies and bones have always had a horror for me; but not the simple fact of being dead, I think.... I do not think I would be afraid to die--if it were not very painful. But ... well, the thought of my dead body is horrid to me. I would not like to see it."

"You're not likely to be troubled to that extent anyway."

"No, one is at all events spared that. But why do you talk of such unpleasant things when the sun is s.h.i.+ning and the waves are sparkling?

Tell me about yourself. All you have told me so far is that you are a doctor, and that your name is Wulfrey Dale. I never heard the name Wulfrey before. And that you were going out to Canada when you were wrecked here. Why were you going out?"

He would have liked to be as frank with her as she had been with him.

But that was impossible. Another woman's good name was too intricately interwoven with his story, and the whole matter was so open to misjudgment. If he tried to explain he must either label that other woman as murderess or himself as an incapable doctor, and he chose to do neither. He wished she had not asked, but found it only natural that she should desire to know all about him.

"I have nothing much to tell," he said. "I come from Hazelford, in Ches.h.i.+re. My father had the practice there and when he died I succeeded to it. But the wander-spirit seized me. I wanted a larger sphere. The new world called, and I came,--as it turns out to a still smaller place----"

"But we are not going to stop here all our lives. We must build that boat and get away."

"We will live in hope, anyway, but for that we are dependent on Macro, and he's not an easy man to drive."

"We will see," she said confidently. "How do you catch your rabbits?"

"Every one of these little valleys is full of them. As soon as you appear they all bolt for their holes and in the panic they tumble over one another and you pick them up."

"I am always sorry to kill things, and they are so pretty," she said, as they crept cautiously up the side of the nearest hummock. "But they are very good and I suppose one must eat."

"Or starve. Now--see!" and he jumped down into the hollow, which scurried into life under his feet, and came back in a moment with a couple of rabbits which he had already knocked on the head.