Reluctantly, they turned from the spacious deck to the close, stuffy atmosphere of the cabin.
Lucile paused at the top step of the companionway to look wistfully up into Jack’s sober eyes. “I—I don’t want to go down there,” she said.
“And I don’t want you to,” he replied. Then, with an earnestness that left no doubt of his sincerity, “Lucile, I’d give a lot right now to have you safe on shore.”
CHAPTER XXVII
HOME
The sun rose gloriously golden, dispelling the stubborn mist with an army of riotous sunbeams, that danced and shimmered over the waves in wild defiance of threatening wind and lowering sky. The decks and railings of the steamer, still wet from the clinging mist, shone and gleamed and sparkled in the sun like one gigantic diamond. Even the sailors sang as they worked, and one of them went so far as to attempt a sailor’s hornpipe on the slippery deck, to the great amusement of his mates.
The girls had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird, distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare, wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the cabin.
So it was that, with the first streak of dawn, Lucile, who had been able to lie still no longer, softly rose, fearing to awake the others, and began to dress.