Part 17 (1/2)

”Now that you have brought me here with so much difficulty, what are you going to do?” she said. ”It will be madness for you to attempt to ford that pa.s.sage again. Where there is one of those horrible things there are others, I suppose.”

Jenks smiled. Somehow he knew that this strict adherence to business was a cloak for her real thoughts. Already these two were able to dispense with spoken word.

But he sedulously adopted her pretext.

”That is one reason why I brought the crowbars,” he explained. ”If you will sit down for a little while I will have everything properly fixed.”

He delved with one of the bars until it lodged in a crevice of the coral. Then a few powerful blows with the back of the axe wedged it firmly enough to bear any ordinary strain. The rope-ends reeved through the pulley on the tree were lying where they fell from the girl's hand at the close of the struggle. He deftly knotted them to the rigid bar, and a few rapid turns of a piece of wreckage pa.s.sed between the two lines strung them into a tautness that could not be attained by any amount of pulling.

Iris watched the operation in silence. The sailor always looked at his best when hard at work. The half-sullen, wholly self-contained expression left his face, which lit up with enthusiasm and concentrated intelligence. That which he essayed he did with all his might. Will power and physical force worked harmoniously. She had never before seen such a man. At such moments her admiration of him was unbounded.

He, toiling with steady persistence, felt not the inward spur which sought relief in speech, but Iris was compelled to say something.

”I suppose,” she commented with an air of much wisdom, ”you are contriving an overhead railway for the safe transit of yourself and the goods?”

”Y--yes.”

”Why are you so doubtful about it?”

”Because I personally intended to walk across. The ropes will serve to convey the packages.”

She rose imperiously. ”I absolutely forbid you to enter the water again. Such a suggestion on your part is quite shameful. You are taking a grave risk for no very great gain that I can see, and if anything happens to you I shall be left all alone in this awful place.”

She could think of no better argument. Her only resource was a woman's expedient--a plea for protection against threatening ills.

The sailor seemed to be puzzled how best to act.

”Miss Deane,” he said, ”there is no such serious danger as you imagine.

Last time the cuttle caught me napping. He will not do so again. Those rifles I must have. If it will serve to rea.s.sure you, I will go along the line myself.”

He made this concession grudgingly. In very truth, if danger still lurked in the neighboring sea, he would be far less able to avoid it whilst clinging to a rope that sagged with his weight, and thus working a slow progress across the channel, than if he were on his feet and prepared to make a rush backwards or forwards.

Not until Iris watched him swinging along with vigorous overhead clutches did this phase of the undertaking occur to her.

”Stop!” she screamed.

He let go and dropped into the water, turning towards her.

”What is the matter now?” he said.

”Go on; do!”

He stood meekly on the further side to listen to her rating.

”You knew all the time that it would be better to walk, yet to please me you adopted an absurdly difficult method. Why did you do it?”

”You have answered your own question.”

”Well, I am very, very angry with you.”

”I'll tell you what,” he said, ”if you will forgive me I will try and jump back. I once did nineteen feet three inches in--er--in a meadow, but it makes such a difference when you look at a stretch of water the same width.”