And so we floated, swinging like dead leaves on the long swells. The stars came out, the gulls went shoreward for the night, and we were as alone as if on the sea. The woman's slender figure, wrapped in her white cloak, became a silent, shining wraith. She was within touch of my hand, yet unreachably remote. I lost my glib speech. The gray loneliness that one feels in a crowd came over me. If I had been alone with my men, I should have felt well accompanied, master of my craft, and in tune with my condition. It was the presence of this alien woman, whom I must protect, but not approach, that made me realize that I was thousands of leagues from my own kind, and that I must depend on my own judgment—with which I felt much out of conceit—to carry this expedition safely through the barbarous wilderness. I shook myself, and told my men to pick up their paddles.
But we were to travel no more toward the southwest that night. My plan was to turn back, paddle due east, and reach the peninsula before the late moonrise. This doubling on my track was to cheat Pemaou if he were indeed pursuing. Then I was planning to make the peninsula my headquarters for a time. I had left word at the islands that I was on my way to confer with the Malhominis, but I had not committed myself as to where I should make my permanent camp. I hoped, in this game of hide and seek, to shake off the Huron, and leave the woman in safe hiding, while I went on my mission from tribe to tribe.
And so I told the men to work with muffled paddles. I thought the precaution somewhat unnecessary, but took it as a matter of form. Now that I was in action again, I felt in command of the situation. And then, from some shadowy distance, I heard the splash of a pursuing oar.
I commanded silence, and we craned into the darkness, and listened. We all heard it. The sound came as regularly as a heart-beat, and it was no muffled stroke. The oarsman was using his paddle openly and fast. The sound came from behind us, a little to the north, and, judging from its growing distinctness, it was following hard in our track. There was nothing for it but a race. I gave orders.
The men worked well, and we sped through foaming water for perhaps a quarter hour. Then land rose in front of us. It shot up, all in an instant, out of the murk, and we had quick work to keep from grounding our canoes. I could see no shore line to north or south. We had found either the end of a promontory or a small island. We landed on a shelving beach, and lifted the canoes out of danger.
"Lie down," I commanded; and we dropped on the sand, and strained our ears for sound of pursuit.
For a time we heard nothing. Our burst of speed had carried us some distance, and I had begun to think that we had shaken off our pursuer, when again came the beat, beat, beat of the distant oar. We lay close as alligators on a bank, and waited. The strokes came nearer, and at last we saw a sliding shape. As well as we could make out, there was but one canoe, and it was passing us a little to the northward. It would miss the jut of land where we were hiding, and land on the main shore of the peninsula. We could hear but one paddle, so judged that there was but one person in the canoe. Still we did not know.
It was growing near moonrise, and there was nothing to be done. I told the men to lie near together, and sleep till I called them. Then I cut boughs and laid a couple of blankets on them for the woman's couch. She had sat quiet all these hours, and now, as I bade her good-night, she asked her first question.
"Are you willing to tell me why you fear pursuit, monsieur?"
I hesitated. "We grow like animals in the wilderness," I parried, "and so suspect every sound as coming from a foe."