The Land That Time Forgot | Page 7

my eyes. I thought I must be dead, and I was afraid to look, for
fear that I should see nothing but blackness about me. I am afraid to die! Tell me what
happened after the ship went down. I remember all that happened before--oh, but I wish
that I might forget it!" A sob broke her voice. "The beasts!" she went on after a moment.
"And to think that I was to have married one of them--a lieutenant in the German navy."
Presently she resumed as though she had not ceased speaking. "I went down and down
and down. I thought I should never cease to sink. I felt no particular distress until I
suddenly started upward at ever-increasing velocity; then my lungs seemed about to burst,
and I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing more until I opened my eyes
after listening to a torrent of invective against Germany and Germans. Tell me, please, all
that happened after the ship sank."
I told her, then, as well as I could, all that I had seen--the submarine shelling the open
boats and all the rest of it. She thought it marvelous that we should have been spared in
so providential a manner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked the
nerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into her lap, and she
stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and put her cheek against his forehead. I
have always admired Nobs; but this was the first time that it had ever occurred to me that
I might wish to be Nobs. I wondered how he would take it, for he is as unused to women
as I. But he took to it as a duck takes to water. What I lack of being a ladies' man, Nobs
certainly makes up for as a ladies' dog. The old scalawag just closed his eyes and put on
one of the softest "sugar-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth" expressions you ever saw and
stood there taking it and asking for more. It made me jealous.
"You seem fond of dogs," I said.
"I am fond of this dog," she replied.
Whether she meant anything personal in that reply I did not know; but I took it as
personal and it made me feel mighty good.
As we drifted about upon that vast expanse of loneliness it is not strange that we should
quickly become well acquainted. Constantly we scanned the horizon for signs of smoke,
venturing guesses as to our chances of rescue; but darkness settled, and the black night
enveloped us without ever the sight of a speck upon the waters.
We were thirsty, hungry, uncomfortable, and cold. Our wet garments had dried but little
and I knew that the girl must be in grave danger from the exposure to a night of cold and
wet upon the water in an open boat, without sufficient clothing and no food. I had
managed to bail all the water out of the boat with cupped hands, ending by mopping the
balance up with my handkerchief--a slow and back-breaking procedure; thus I had made
a comparatively dry place for the girl to lie down low in the bottom of the boat, where the
sides would protect her from the night wind, and when at last she did so, almost
overcome as she was by weakness and fatigue, I threw my wet coat over her further to
thwart the chill. But it was of no avail; as I sat watching her, the moonlight marking out
the graceful curves of her slender young body, I saw her shiver.

"Isn't there something I can do?" I asked. "You can't lie there chilled through all night.
Can't you suggest something?"
She shook her head. "We must grin and bear it," she replied after a moment.
Nobbler came and lay down on the thwart beside me, his back against my leg, and I sat
staring in dumb misery at the girl, knowing in my heart of hearts that she might die
before morning came, for what with the shock and exposure, she had already gone
through enough to kill almost any woman. And as I gazed down at her, so small and
delicate and helpless, there was born slowly within my breast a new emotion. It had never
been there before; now it will never cease to be there. It made me almost frantic in my
desire to find some way to keep warm and cooling lifeblood in her veins. I was cold
myself, though I had almost forgotten it until Nobbler moved and I felt a new sensation
of cold along my leg against which he had lain, and suddenly realized that in that one
spot I had been