The Firing Line | Page 2

at exact intervals another and

another in impressive processional, sailing majestically through the fog;
white pelicans winging inland to the lagoons.
A few minutes later the wind, which had become fitful, suddenly grew
warm. All around him now the mist was dissolving into a thin golden
rain; the land-breeze freshened, blowing through distant jasmine
thickets and orange groves, and a soft fragrance stole out over the sea.
As the sun broke through in misty splendour, the young man, brooding
on his oars, closed his eyes; and at the same instant his boat careened
violently, almost capsizing as a slender wet shape clambered aboard
and dropped into the bows. As the boat heeled under the shock Hamil
had instinctively flung his whole weight against the starboard gunwale.
Now he recovered his oars and his balance at the same time, and, as he
swung half around, his unceremonious visitor struggled to sit upright,
still fighting for breath.
"I beg your pardon," she managed to say; "may I rest here? I am--" She
stopped short; a flash of sudden recognition came into her
eyes--flickered, and faded. It was evident to him that, for a moment,
she thought she had met him before.
"Of course you may stay here," he said, inclined to laugh.
She settled down, stretching slightly backward as though to give her
lungs fuller play. In a little while her breathing grew more regular; her
eyes closed for a moment, then opened thoughtfully, skyward.
Hamil's curious and half-amused gaze rested on her as he resumed the
oars. But when he turned his back and headed the boat shoreward a
quick protest checked him, and oars at rest, he turned again, looking
inquiringly at her over his shoulder.
"I am only rowing you back to the beach," he said.
"Don't row me in; I am perfectly able to swim back."
"No doubt," he returned drily, "but haven't you played tag with Death

sufficiently for one day?"
"Death?" She dismissed the grotesque suggestion with a shrug, then
straightened up, breathing freely and deeply. "It is an easy swim," she
remarked, occupied with her wet hair under the knotted scarlet; "the fog
confused me; that was all."
"And how long could you have kept afloat if the fog had not lifted?" he
inquired with gentle sarcasm. To which, adroitly adjusting hair and
kerchief, she made no answer. So he added: "There is supposed to be a
difference between mature courage and the fool-hardiness of the
unfledged--"
"What?"
The quick close-clipped question cutting his own words silenced him.
And, as he made no reply, she continued to twist the red kerchief
around her hair, and to knot it securely, her doubtful glance returning
once or twice to his amused face.
When all had been made fast and secure she rested one arm on the
gunwale and dropped the other across her knees, relaxing in every
muscle a moment before departure. And, somehow, to Hamil, the
unconscious grace of the attitude suggested the "Resting Hermes"--that
sculptured concentration of suspended motion.
"You had better not go just yet," he said, pointing seaward.
She also had been watching the same thing that he was now looking at,
a thin haze which again became apparent over the Gulf-stream.
"Do you think it will thicken?" she asked.
"I don't know; you had a close call last time--"
"There was no danger."
"I think there was danger enough; you were apparently headed straight
out to sea--"

"I heard a ship's bell and swam toward it, and when the fog lifted I
found you."
"Why didn't you swim toward the shore? You could hear the surf--and
a dog barking."
"I"--she turned pink with annoyance--"I suppose I was a trifle tired--if
you insist. I realised that I had lost my bearings; that was all. Then I
heard a ship's bell.... Then the mist lifted and I saw you--but I've
explained all that before. Look at that exasperating fog!"
Vexation silenced her; she sat restless for a few seconds, then:
"What do you think I had better do?"
"I think you had better try to endure me for a few minutes longer. I'm
safer than the fog."
But his amusement left her unresponsive, plainly occupied with her
own ideas.
Again the tent of vapour stretched its magic folds above the boat and
around it; again the shoreward shapes faded to phantoms and
disappeared.
He spoke again once or twice, but her brief replies did not encourage
him. At first, he concluded that her inattention and indifference must be
due to self-consciousness; then, slightly annoyed, he decided they were
not. And, very gradually, he began to realise that the unconventional,
always so attractive to the casual young man, did not interest her at all,
even enough to be aware of it or of him.
This cool unconsciousness of