Part 28 (1/2)

She arose and, filling another plate, started toward him, carrying it.

Her eyes were following his tracks in the sand. Sam instinctively sprang up and took to his heels.

His cheeks burned at the realization that she would presently discover that he had been sitting there watching her. He had not thought of the tell-tale sand. Wherever he might seek to hide, it would betray him.

He made a complete circuit of the little island, Bela presumably following him. The circ.u.mference of the beach was about half a mile.

He ran as hard as he could, and presently discovered her ahead of him. He had almost overtaken her.

Thereafter he followed more slowly, keeping her in sight from the cover of the bushes. The secret consciousness that he was acting like a wilful child did not make him any happier.

When he came around to Bela's fire again, seeing the dugout drawn up on the sand, his heart leaped at the chance of escape. If he could push off in it without capsizing, surely, even with his lack of skill, he could drive before the wind. Or even if he could keep it floating under the lee of the island, he could dictate terms.

He waited, hidden, until she pa.s.sed out of sight ahead, then ran to it. But even as he put his hands on the bow, she reappeared, running back. He fled in the other direction.

The chase went on reversed. He no longer heard her coming behind him.

Now he could not tell whether she were in front or behind. He pa.s.sed the dugout and the camp fire again. No sign of her there. Rounding the point beyond, he came to the place where he had made his own fire.

Trying to keep eyes in every side of his head at once, he walked around a bush and almost collided with her. There she stood with dimpled face, like a child, behind the door.

She burst out laughing. Sam turned beet colour and, scowling like a pirate, tried to carry it off with dignity.

”Don't be mad at me,” she begged, struggling with her laughter. ”You so fonny, run away. Here's your breakfast. It's cold now. You can bring it to the fire.”

There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam, though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.

”You got eat,” said Bela. ”Tak' it.”

”Not from you,” he returned bitterly.

There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died away around the point.

Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.

The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes of escape and revenge.

He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew in a direction favourable to carry him ash.o.r.e. The trouble was the nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a problem.

He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought.

This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he determined to go and get them.

Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to a.s.sert his manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.

She raised a face as bland as a baby's. Sam was disconcerted. Desiring to pick a quarrel, he roughly demanded his blankets. Bela nodded toward where they hung and went on with her work. She was making a trolling spoon.

So much for their second encounter. Sam retired from it, feeling that he had come off no better than from the first.

Later, back on his own side, bored and irritated beyond endurance, he rolled up in his blankets and sought sleep as an escape from his own company.

He slept and dreamed. The roaring of the wind and the beating of the waves wove themselves into his fancies. He dreamed he was engulfed in a murky tempest, He was tossing wildly in a sh.e.l.l of a boat, without oars or sail. Sometimes green and smiling fields appeared close at hand, only to be swallowed up in the murk again.