Harold Bindloss - Thrice Armed

Jimmy looked at her, and, finding no very apposite rejoinder, nodded. "Well," he said, "I suppose he must; but did you get anything for yourself or Miss Austerly? You can't live on nothing any more than I can. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to after what I've noticed in the mail-boat's saloons."

He was aware that he had made a slip, but fancied it had escaped his companion's attention, which, of course, displayed very little perspicacity. In the meanwhile, he got a turn of the weather tiller line round a cleat, and lowered himself further until he sat in the cockpit with several inches of water swishing about him.

"Nellie is asleep at last. I did not awaken her," said his companion.

"That isn't all I asked. Did you get anything yourself?"

The girl said she had not done so, and for a moment there was the faintest suspicion of color in her face.

"Then you will share what you have brought with me," said Jimmy.

"There isn't a cup. I couldn't find one that wasn't broken. The forecastle shelf has torn away."

"You couldn't have kept the coffee in it if you had. Take what you want before it gets cold," and Jimmy pointed to the jug.

Anthea raised it to her lips, and then pushed it back along the cockpit floor, while, though she had not meant to do so, she flashed a swift glance at her companion when he held it in his hand. As it happened, Jimmy looked at her just then, and she saw the little glint in his eyes. He felt that she had done so, and, while he would not have had it happen, let his gaze rest on her steadily while he made her a little inclination. Then he drank, and, after he had thrust the plate in her direction, broke off a portion of bread and canned meat; some of which crumbled and stuck to his wet oilskins.

He was quite aware that neither his attitude nor manner of eating was especially graceful, but that could not be helped, and he laughed when his companion clutched at the remnant on the plate. She smiled at him too, and he wondered why they were both apparently so much at ease. Still, it did not seem in any way an unusual or unfitting thing that he and this delicately brought up girl should make their meal as equals in the little dripping cockpit with a single plate and one drinking vessel between them. He felt that it was as a comrade she regarded him, in place of tolerating him from necessity, and he noticed that even under the very uncomfortable conditions she ate daintily.

"Where are we?" she asked at last.

"About twenty miles to leeward of the Inlet, and perhaps eight off the shore. At least, I should like to believe we are. How is it you look so fresh, instead of worn out? Where did you learn to make yourself at home in a boat?"

"In Toronto," said Anthea. "I was there two years, and they are fond of yachting in that city. I once did some sailing in England too. What do you think of their boats? It is, perhaps, fortunate Valentine made the Sorata a cutter, as they generally do, instead of a sloop. You could hardly have handled her under the latter's single headsail last night."

"No," said Jimmy, "I don't think I could. If she had been rigged that way she would probably have gone under by now. Still, I don't see why you should expect me to know anything about English boats."

Anthea smiled as she looked at him. "Perhaps you don't, though you don't invariably express yourself as a man would who had never been away from the Pacific Slope."

"Well," said Jimmy reflectively, "it's not quite a sure thing that the way they talk in an English ship's forecastle is very much nicer."

"There are more places in a mail-boat than her forecastle."

It seemed to Jimmy advisable to change the subject, and he made a little grimace as he glanced at the plate.

"I'm afraid I've cleaned up everything," he said.

Anthea laughed. "Which is quite as it should be. I can get more, and you can't. Still, perhaps you have left some coffee."

Jimmy was about to point out that there was no cup, but refrained, for it flashed on him that his companion was, of course, aware of this, and he gravely handed her the jug. What her purpose was he did not know, and indeed he was never clear on this point, though he fancied that she had one; but it was, at least, evident that she was damp and chilled, and needed the physical stimulant. The trifling act, it seemed, might equally be a pledge of camaraderie, or a recognition of the fact that they were for the time being no more than man and woman between whom all distinctions had vanished in the face of peril; but he seemed to feel it had a still deeper significance. He had once held her in his arms, and now they had shared the same plate and drunk from the same vessel.

Then the Sorata reminded him that she required attention, for a sea seethed on board her forward, and when it poured into the cockpit he swung himself back to the coaming. A minute or two later he stretched out his hand, and the girl drew in her breath as she glanced ahead, for a sail materialized suddenly out of the vapor. It was suggestively slanted, and a dusky strip that looked very small appeared beneath it when it swung high on the crest of a sea.

"Siwashes," said Jimmy; "one of their sea canoes. They have to keep her running. She wouldn't lie-to."

The craft drew abreast of them, traveling wonderfully fast, and Anthea long remembered how she drove by the Sorata , hove half her length out of water, riding on the ridge of a big gray sea. She was entirely open, a long, narrow, bird-headed thing, and the foam she flung off forward seemed to lap over her after-half. A little drenched spritsail was spread from an insignificant mast, and four crouching figures with dusky faces were partly visible amidst the wisps of spray that whirled about her. One of them held a long paddle, and looked fixedly ahead; the others gazed at the Sorata

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