By-and-by—it seemed to her a long time—she saw a canoe coming round the point. It held but one person—Paul. He paddled rapidly towards her. “Why didn’t you follow me, as I told you to?” he said, almost angrily. “Hollis has gone back to the camp for more canoes and the Indians; he took Cicely, and he ought to have taken you.”
“I wanted to stay here.”
“You will be in the way; drowned people are not always a pleasant sight. Sit where you are, then, since you are here; if I come across anything, I’ll row in at a distance from you.”
He paddled off again.
But before very long she saw him returning. “Are you really not afraid?” he asked, as his canoe grated on the beach.
“No.”
“There’s some one out there. But I find I can’t lift anything into this canoe alone—it’s so tottlish; I could swim and tow, though, if I had the canoe as a help. Can you paddle?”
“Yes.”
“Get in, then.” He stepped out of the boat, and she took his place. He pushed it off and waded beside her until the water came to his chin; then he began to swim, directing her course by a movement of his head. She used her paddle very cautiously, now on one side, now on the other, the whole force of her attention bent upon keeping the little craft steady. After a while, chancing to raise her eyes, she saw something dark ahead. Fear seized her, she could not look at it; she felt faint. At the same moment, Paul left her, swimming towards the floating thing. With a determined effort at self-control, she succeeded in turning the canoe, and waited steadily until Paul gave the sign. Keeping her eyes carefully away from that side, she then started back towards the shore, Paul convoying his floating freight a little behind her. As they approached the beach, he made a motion signifying that she should take the canoe farther down; when she was safely at a distance, he brought his tow ashore. It was the body of a sailor. The fragment of deck planking to which he was tied had one end charred; this told the dreadful tale—fire at sea.
The sailor was dead, though it was some time before Paul would acknowledge it. At length he desisted from his efforts. He came down the beach to Eve, wiping his forehead with his wet sleeve. “No use, he’s dead. I am going out again.”