“I’m not sleepy,” he answered harshly.
She laughed at that. “Don’t tell such stories. You can hardly hold your eyes open. And—don’t talk. Sleep.”
Black Pawl hated himself for submitting; but he could do nothing but submit. Sleep rolled over him in waves, higher and higher. He was like a rock up which the tide was lapping. When the tide should cover him, he would sleep.... No chance, then. Yet he was so sleepy, so terribly sleepy.
The world was receding; it was gone. He was asleep—at peace.
The girl did not at first know when Black Pawl dropped into the deeps of slumber. He moved uneasily from side to side; and she continued stroking his forehead. But after a little, in his twistings, the compress was dislodged, and she saw his eyes were closed, and did not open as they had opened before.
She went up on deck for a space, and gazed off toward the shore. She could see the boats drawn up on the beach, but nothing of the men.
Presently she descended to her own cabin and began to brush her hair.
Black Pawl’s slumber was fitful and uneasy and haunted by dreams. The man was too tired for restful sleep; his nerves had yielded to the girl’s soft touch, but when she was gone, he twitched where he lay, and his arms and legs writhed and twisted. Now and again he groaned, and once he brushed at the cold compress with his hand.
Then, suddenly, he awoke. His head was splitting; his month was parched. He opened his eyes, sat up and looked about him—and remembered.
She was gone. So! She had tricked him to sleep and fled; thus had she sought to escape him. Perhaps she had signaled to the shore.