He held up a hand to enforce silence. A deep hush fell on the ship.

"Listen!" he muttered, so low that Elsie alone caught the words. "Can

you hear firing?"

She thought she could distinguish an irregular patter of dull reports,

and the behavior of the Indians showed that additional excitement was

toward. Many of them stood up and waved their arms, possibly as a

signal to their allies on shore. The canoes raced madly. Where speed

was vital the rough-hewn native craft were far swifter than the

solidly-built lifeboat, with its broad beam and deep draft.

And that was all. Though they strained their eyes and spoke with bated

breath, never a sight of boat or canoes was obtainable for hours after

the latter were swallowed up by the trees which shrouded the creek at

the foot of Guanaco Hill.

Isobel Baring, moved by genuine pity for her distraught friend, tried

to induce her to leave the deck. But she shrank away, terrified by the

fire which blazed from the blue eyes resting on her for an instant.

Mrs. Somerville came, but she, too, was repulsed. Elsie spoke no word.

She hardly moved. She clung to the rail, and gazed at the deepening

shadows with the frozen stare of abiding horror. All things around her

were unreal, fantastic; she dwelt in a world peopled by her own

terrible imaginings. The smiling landscape was alive with writhing

shapes. She fancied it a monstrous jungle full of serpents and

grotesquely human beasts. The inert mass of the Kansas, so modern,

so perfectly appointed in its contours and appurtenances, crushed her

by its immense helplessness. The dominant idea in her mind was one of

voiceless rage against the ship and its occupants. Why should her

lover, who had saved their lives--who had plucked the eight thousand

tons of steel fabric from the sharp-toothed rocks time and again--why

should he be lying dead, disfigured by savage spite, while those to

whom he had rendered such devoted service were coolly discussing his

fate and speculating on their own good fortune? That thought maddened

her. Her very brain seemed to burn with the unfairness of it all.

When Christobal made a serious effort to lead her away, she threatened

him with the fierceness of a mother defending her child from evil.

But relief was vouchsafed in the worst throes of her agony. It was

some poor consolation to let her sorrow-laden eyes rest on the far-off

trees which enshrouded him. What would befall her when night came, and

the ship drew back out of the living world into the narrow gloom of

deck and gangway, she could not know. She felt that her labored heart

would refuse to bear its pangs any longer. If death came, that would

be sweet. Her only hope lay in the life beyond the grave. . . . And

what a grave! For her, the restless tides. For him! Surely her mind

would yield to this increasing madness.




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