Part 14 (1/2)

”What has become of Bompard?” she asked. ”Have you seen him since he went off this morning over those rocks?”

”Bompard,” replied the other, ”Mon Dieu! How do I know? No, I have not seen him, he is big enough to take care of himself.”

”That may be,” she replied, ”but accidents happen no matter how big a man may be. He has not returned--”

”So it would seem,” said La Touche, who had now got the tin open and was turning the contents on to a plate. ”But he will return when he remembers that it is dinner-time.”

Her lips were dry with anger, there was a contained insolence in the manner and voice of the other that roused her as much as his callousness. His mind seemed as cold as his pale blue eyes. All her mixed feelings towards him focussed suddenly into a point--she loathed him; but she held herself in.

”If he has not returned when we have finished dinner,” said she, ”we will have to look for him.” She took a plate and some of the beef he had turned from the tin and with a couple of biscuits drew off and taking her place outside in the sun began her wretched meal. A rabbit that had run out on the sands sat up and looked at her as she ate, then it ran off and as she followed it with her eyes she contrasted the little friendly form with the form of La Touche, the dark innocent eyes with those eyes of washed-out blue, without depth, or, perhaps, veiling depth.

When she had finished eating she put the plate by her side and sat waiting for La Touche to make a movement.

Bompard that morning had left his tinder box behind him in the cave, she heard the strike of flint on steel. La Touche was lighting his pipe. She waited ten minutes or more, then she came to the cave mouth.

”Are you not coming to look for Bompard?” asked she.

”I'll go when I choose,” said he, ”I don't want orders.”

”I gave you no orders,” she replied, ”I asked you, are you not coming to look for Bompard who may be in difficulties, or lying perhaps with a broken limb--and you sit there smoking your pipe. But I give you orders now; get up and come and help to look for him. Get up at once.”

He sprang to his feet and came right out. It seemed to her that she had never seen him before. This was the real La Touche.

”One word more from you,” he shouted, ”and I'll show you who's master.

You! Talk to me, would you! A--woman more trouble than you're worth. Off with you, get down the beach--clear!”

He took a step forward with his right fist ready to strike, open-handed. Then he drew back. She had whipped the knife from its sheath.

The boat hook, which she had brought back with her, was propped against the cliff behind her and out of his reach, he had no weapon.

She did not add a word to the threat of the knife. He stood like a fool, unable to sustain her gaze, venomous, yet held, as a snake is held by a man's grip.

”Now,” she said, ”get on. Go search for your companion and if you dare to speak to me again like that I will make you repent it. You thought I was weak being a woman and alone. You were going to strike. Coward!--Get on, go and search for your companion.”

He turned suddenly and walked off towards the Lizard rocks. ”I'll go where I choose,” said he.

It was a lame and impotent end of his rebellion, but she held no delusions. This was only the beginning--if Bompard did not return.

She put the knife in its sheath and then she put the boat hook away, hiding it behind the sailcloth in her cave, then she went into the men's cave. La Touche's clasp knife lay there on the sand, it was not much of a weapon but she took it. She examined the dinner knives again.

They were almost useless as weapons. Then she came out. La Touche had disappeared beyond the rocks and she came to the boat. There was nothing here in the way of a weapon that he might use, unless the oars. They were heavy, but he was strong. She determined to leave nothing to chance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs, she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe, sought for it and hid it.

Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters.

The position was as bad as could be.

As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she was lost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely.

Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above him would be meat and drink to La Touche's true nature and that his hatred of her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman.