“I feel like a son of that land”—one hand left the bundle an instant and pointed down at the map—“The Unexplored. Like a man who sees his mother country filched from him bit by bit, parceled out and brought under subjection. Yes”—he raised his voice suddenly to such a note as set the girl’s nerves unaccountably to thrilling—“yes, I resent the partition of that empire. It is the oldest on the earth. I am glad I shall not see its passing.” He leaned back, and a grayness gathered on his face as he ended: “Many a man will be without a country, many a soul will be homeless when the last province of that kingdom yields.”
She only nodded, but he suddenly began afresh, as though she had contributed something convincing. “I have never talked of these things to a woman, but since you seem to feel the significance of—” He broke off, and then slowly, “It might be you could help me,” he said.
“How could I—”
Still clinging feverishly to the knotted oilskin, he dragged himself with difficulty to an upright posture and craned forward to stare through the open door. Not this time northward solely, but down the beach as well as up.
“What are you looking for?” asked the girl.
As he sat there huddled, silent, she became conscious that he was listening—listening with that sort of strained intentness that almost creates sound, does create it to the sense accessible to hypnotic influence.
“Who is that outside?” he said very low.
“No one,” she answered, though it seemed to her, too, there must be some one there.
“Look out and see.”
As she got up to obey him, “But you won’t go away,” he said suddenly.