FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   >>  
d made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of dull sounds of explosion. My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that Joyce and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting under sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which would prove a fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the point. The mate gave a grunt of satisfaction when at length the schooner began to dip her bow and lay over to her task. Leaving him in charge, I started to go below, when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully dressed, confronted me. She seemed to have materialized out of the air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like burnished copper in the unnatural illumination which bathed the deck, but her face was ashen, and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop short. "You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask. "Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away, looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me toward the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the droop of her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad impulse which the dark water suggested. "Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply. She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the deck for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood upon the water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke: "What other way out is there?" "Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your husband asleep?" "Thank God, yes!" "Then you have been awake----" "For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that went over her body. "The man is mad----" "But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot endure it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't you see that there is no escape--from this?" The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea. "When we reach Malduna----" I began, but the words were only torture. "I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island. Let me live abandoned--or rather die----" "Mr
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   123   124   125   >>  



Top keywords:
unnatural
 

convulsively

 

Suddenly

 

tighten

 

shortly

 
fingers
 
rushing
 

faltering

 
impulse
 

remonstrated


suggested

 

sharply

 
continued
 

sensed

 
detected
 

escape

 
abandoned
 
island
 

Malduna

 

torture


taking

 

confessed

 

asleep

 

forward

 

husband

 

shudder

 

gripping

 

prisoner

 

confine

 

endure


caught

 
stopped
 

married

 

relief

 

glance

 
accompaniment
 

sounds

 
explosion
 

breeze

 
sprung

awakened
 

commotion

 
command
 
obeyed
 

righting

 

listed

 
standing
 

uneasy

 
alacrity
 

continuously