sailors, who have had to exercise their wits, he was
quick to devise ways to keep their larder supplied. He caught fish with
a hook made out of a sharp-pointed stick hardened in flame; he killed
sea-gulls with stones hurled from a sling; he overturned turtles while
they lay basking in the sun, and he saw to it that they had an abundant
supply of fresh drinking-water.

Grace also was not idle. She mended and patched their clothes with
needles made of fish-bone and thread made of the fiber of plantain
fruit; and under Armitage's clumsy tuition she quickly learned how to
cook. He showed her how to clean and broil the fish he caught, and
taught her how to obtain salt by boiling sea water until the water
evaporated. In a cleverly improvised oven which he built for her, she
learned how to bake delicious cakes of flour made from dried and
pulverised plantain fruit. She prepared their meals, which they ate
together at regular hours, and for dessert she set before him
plantains, quinces, limes, and cocoanuts which she herself had gathered
in the wood.

This constant and intimate association could have only one result. Every
day it brought the proud beauty and her taciturn companion closer than
would have been possible under any other conditions. At times, in her
interest in the work of the moment, Grace would entirely forget their
difference in class. She would unbend and laugh and chat with him as
though she had known him for years. Then, an instant later, suddenly
conscious of their respective positions and what she thought she owed to
her own dignity, she would relapse into an abrupt silence and draw away
once more, cold and reserved. But this purely artificial demeanor could
not be kept up. A few hours later, obeying her natural impulse, she was
herself again, chatting with him freely, asking his opinion, trying to
please him, full of respect for his superior judgment.

Armitage listened to her ceaseless prattle, amused at her vivacity,
replying gravely to her questions, explaining all she wished to know.
During long, idle afternoons they would sit together on the beach and
he would tell her stories of the sea, about lands he had visited,
strange people he had seen, while Grace, curled up at his feet, like a
child, listened with breathless attention.

Thus gradually, almost unconsciously, their mutual interest in each
other grew. They became necessary to each other. Sharing common perils,
they naturally sought each other