Part 12 (1/2)
They paused by the outskirts of the village and peered toward its clustered, ruddy firelights flickering out upon the shore There was no one abroad on that ehter a of a child
”It is still too early,” he murmured, and led her back to the cover of a thicket
Miss Matilda are of a slackening from the keen excite that the boat should have been ready to waft the to get one?” she asked
”Any of these people would lend ht merely to take the first at hand”
”I see none”
”No--they are gone Perhaps the ht
But that would be strange too,” he added, perplexed
Soh upon her like an affront Shesense of romance and emprise and ile co Here were voices too, but these were harsh and displeasing, common hureasily down the air The fretful child began screaain and went suddenly silent at a brusque clap So in ato do?” she deo search”
”You will not leave me--!”
”Only for a time I must find someone who has a boat and borrow it If there are no others, the trader will lend son--?”
”He cannot knohat I want of it”
”Motauri--” she cried, appalled, ”keep away from that man!”
”I have used his boat before,” he soothed ”It will be all right And we must--we must have a boat Reht his wrist unwittingly, but now she released it They stood so for a
”Very well,” she said, subdued
”You will be safe here,” he assured her ”Stay close in the brush
nobody passes this last house And when I co a little, very quietly, to let you know Good-bye, Hokoolele--!”
”Good-bye,” she said, with a catch at her throat and a strange foreboding
Abruptly he had vanished
How long Miss Matilda crouched in her thicket by the beach of Wailoa she could not have told It seeht clouded down, even the stars were veiled An on-shore breeze whined forlornly across the sands Her fever had passed She was da, soiled with ar
She was veryshe had ever experienced, as if the props of life were fallen away And so they were, for those she had known she had thrust behind and Motauri's er sustained her Worse than all was the pressure gathering in herfill in a lock She dared not let herself think Still no Motauri
Benumbed, exhausted, sunk in hebetude, she waited until she could wait no more, until intolerable suspense drove her blindly She crept through the bush and so ca by a native hut--to see what it ritten she should see at that particular moment