Out of the Primitive | Page 5

yards out when the castaways came flying out the rocky slope of the cliff foot and scrambled down to the water's edge.
Lord James sprang up and waved his yachting cap.
"Miss Leslie!--Tom, old man!" he joyously hailed them. "You're safe!-- both safe!"
"Good Lord! That you, Jimmy?" shouted back the man, "Well, of all the --Hey! down brakes! 'Ware rocks!"
At the warning, the boat's crew backed water and came on inshore with more caution. Without stopping to ask her permission, the man caught up the panting, excited girl in his arms, and waded out to meet the boat.
"That's near enough. Swing round," he ordered.
The boat came about and backed in a length, to where he stood thigh- deep in the still water, with the blushing girl upraised on his broad shoulder. Lord James again lifted his cap. His bow could not have been more formal and respectful had the meeting occurred in the queen's drawing-room.
"Miss Leslie! This is a very great pleasure, 'pon my word! But you've overheated yourself. You should not have run," he remonstrated. As Blake lifted her in over the stern, he deftly unfolded the silk dustcoat and held it open for her." Permit me--No need of such haste, y'know. I assure you, we're not so strict as to our hour of sailing."
"I--I--Of course we--" stammered the girl.
"To be sure! Ah, no hat! I should have foreseen. Very stupid of me not to've brought a hat or parasol. But I dare say you'll make out till we get back aboard ship."
His conventional manner and quiet conversational tone alike tended to ease her of her embarrassment. By the time she had slipped on the coat and seated herself, the crimson blushes that had flooded her tanned cheeks were fast subsiding, and she was able to respond with a fair degree of composure: "That was extremely thoughtful of you, Lord Avondale!"
"Not at all, not at all," he disclaimed. "Cocks'n, if you'll be so kind as to go forward, I'll take the tiller. Tom, old man! don't stand there all day. You'll get your feet damp. Climb in!"
"No; pull out," replied Blake, his eyes hardening with sudden resolve. "I forgot something. Got to go back to the cleft. You take Jen--Miss Leslie aboard at once."
"Oh, no, Tom!" hastily protested the girl. "We'll wait here for you."
"Here?" he demanded. "And without your hat?"
Miss Leslie put her scarred and begrimed little hands to her dishevelled hair.
Blake went on in an authoritative tone: "It won't do for you to get a sunstroke now--after all these weeks. Jimmy, take her straight aboard. I've got to go back, I tell you. We didn't stop for anything. There's a jarful of mud and so forth that we sure can't leave to the hyenas." He met the girl's appealing glance with firm decision. "You must get aboard, out of this sun, fast as they can take you."
"Yes, of course, if you think it best--Tom," she acquiesced.
Her ready docility would of itself have been sufficient to surprise Lord James. But, in addition, there was a soft note in her voice and a glow in her beautiful hazel eyes that caused him to glance quickly from her to his friend. Blake was already turning about to wade ashore. From what little could be seen of his bristly face, its expression was stern, almost morose. The powerful jaw was clenched.
Though puzzled and a trifle discomposed, Lord James quietly seated himself beside the girl, and signing the men to give way, took the tiller.
"My dear Miss Leslie," he murmured, "if you but knew my delight over having found both you and Tom safe and well!"
"Then you really know him?" she replied. "Yes, to be sure; he called you by your first name. Wait! I remember now. One day soon after we were cast ashore--the second day, when we were thinking how to get fire, to drive away the leopard--"
"Leopard? I say! So that's where you got this odd gown?"
"No--the mother leopard and the cubs. I was going to say, Tom remarked that James Scarbridge had been his chum."
"Had been? He meant _is!_"
"Then it's true! Oh, isn't it strange and--and splendid? You know, I did not connect the remark with you, Lord James. He had told me to try to think how we were to find food for the next meal. His reference to you was made quite casually in his talk with Winthrope."
"Winthrope!" exclaimed Lord James. "Then he, too, reached shore? Yet if so--"
The girl put her hand before her eyes, as if to shut out some terrible sight. Her voice sank to a whisper: "He--he was killed in the second cyclone--a few days ago."
"Ah!" muttered the young earl. After a pause, he asked in a tone of profound sympathy, "And the others--Lady Bayrose?"
"Don't ask! don't ask!" she cried, shuddering and trembling.
But quickly