Part 37 (1/2)
”Good-bye, Lalee that was hellish in its ferocity ”Pity I haven't got Sonnenberg here to send after you
Well, you and I are quits now, at any rate Good-bye, Laasping, inarticulate yell Then the struggles of the despairing wretch ceased A boil of bubbles ca up to the surface of the now rave and his unconscious charge were alone together once ht sea
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
”AIR, LIGHT, AND WAVE SEEMED FULL OF BURNING REST”
Morning dawned The sun shot up fro the vast i doith rapidly increasing and merciless heat upon the speck formed by the ireen, slimy, and now most horrible expanse Not another object was visible far or near, not even so ht have come to the surface Had they drifted with soht's awful disaster?
Roden Musgrave, supporting hirasp upon the hatch, had been swi mechanically all these hours, and well indeed was it that the water in those semi-tropical seas was more than ordinarily buoyant, for this and his coolness of brain had enabled hied to secure his unconscious co-bolts with a piece of cord which he had thrust into his pocket in view of soency, and this tith in holding her in her otherwise precarious position Yet now, upon hi to tell; and he was, as we have said, swi mechanically and as one half-asleep
Now a hand stole forth and rested softly and caressingly upon his head
”Love, why did you not leave me to my fate?” The voice, low and dreamy in its sweetness, resumed: ”It would have been all over by now Yet you threay safety to coive your life for mine”
The voice, the touch, awakened him, roused him to consciousness as wide as it ever had been
”I would not be in such safety now if I had the opportunity,” ca head ”Our chances are desperate, yet I am happier at this moment than I have been at any ti, how selfish I a all these hours in the water,” she said ”Co will carry us both Then we can talk nearer--closer to each other”
”No It will hardly carry you dry and coht capsize it, and what then?”
For answer she began deliberately to untie the knots of the lashi+ngs that secured her
”What--what are you doing?”
”I a to take your place Then you will be able to rest”
”Mona! Mona I don't be foolish You can't swim a stroke”
”But the lifebelt will keep ”
”No, no, I tell you Don't loosen the knots I ain so easily Stay I will try if the thing will hold us both, if only for a little while”
By the , and alert to lower hied to wor beside her, the additional weight sub any violent or sudden movement, the position was comparatively a safe one Then, for the first ti to the surface after being dran in the vortex of the foundering shi+p, they kissed, and there, crouching on their few feet of planking, it the only frail support between thereen depths of that awful ocean abyss, themselves not even entirely above the surface, with all the terrors of their indescribably appalling position vividly brought home to them by the oozy, lifeless silence of the deserted sea, and the fierce, darting rays of the ascending sun, these two alone together were happy--strangely, mysteriously, awesoether without supplies,” said Roden, ale bag and began to extract so the utmost care lest a drop of sea water should by any chance be splashed upon the latter ”But weof the our cruise is likely to last If any of the boats of the _Scythian_ are picked up we shall be searched for”
”And if not?”
”We must take our chance We cannot be out of the track of the mail lines”
His hopeful tone was full of comfort to Mona, who quite overlooked the vastness of ocean, and the coe of a h invisibility of so s a flat surface, would hardly attract attention even at a very short distance She ate a morsel of the biscuit and concentrated soup, and sipped a little of the weak spirit and water out of the pewter flask, then declared that she felt able to go for a long ti, dearest?” she cried, as having satisfied himself that she was in earnest, he had deliberately shut up and replaced the supplies ”No, no, I won't allow that You shall not starve yourself”
”I don't want anything; not yet, at any rate The rest has set me upMona would not for a moment listen Not another morsel would she touch until he had taken his share, she vowed
Besides, putting the rounds, if he starved hith to watch over her?