She took him in her arms, in turn. What mattered that the white hands left little blood marks on his shoulder?
"First, you must eat," said the man, "and then you must tell me how you came."
He pressed upon her the cooked food and fruit which she herself had forced the islanders to provide.
"We may not get any more when this is gone," she said.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he quoted recklessly; "eat now."
She did not understand, but the command was simple, and she obeyed. Whatever her lover said was right, of course.
"Now, tell me," he said, when they had stayed their hunger, "how did you come here?"
"They put me in the house with the two women to guard me after they had lowered you down here. I was to be married to Hano today. I would have died rather than that. I had told you I would join you here. I persuaded the women. They like you, Beek-man. They don't like Hano. They let me escape. I went to your house, and brought the bright-tipped staff and the thing that cuts. I crept down the brook where you had come up."
"There was no watcher?"
"Yes."