She pointed to the cliff, through which the brook plunged. He noticed a long rope hanging down, buffeted by the leaping waters into which it swayed back from time to time.
"Amazing," he cried, rising to his feet and stepping toward her.
"Do you think anything could keep me there when you were here?" said the girl, stretching out her hands to him, and then he noticed, for the first time, that her palms were cut and scratched and had been bleeding. Her knees, her feet, were in the same sorry condition. He sank down on his knees before her. He took the hands which she yielded to him without question and pressed them tenderly against his cheek.
"You have hurt yourself," he said, that petty little fact bulking larger at the moment than any other; "and for me, my poor child."
"The joy in my heart," said the girl, laying one bruised palm beneath her tender breast, "when I saw you asleep and safe here, made me forget this."
"Why didn't you wake me?" asked the man, looking up at her.
"You were so tired," said the girl, laying her other maimed hand on his head.
He could feel her wince as she did so. He had opened a cocoanut the night before. The broken shell lay at hand. He lifted her up, carried her to the bank of the brook, set her poor, torn feet in the cool water, and, with the shell, laved her hands and knees. It was all he could do. He had nothing else. Then he bent and kissed her lips, her hands, her feet. He strained her to his breast.
"You shall not walk a step or carry a thing until those precious hands and feet are well."
"They are well now since you kissed them. See, I feel no pain."