“No, only as far as—”
“Don’t go out of sight!” There was an excitement in his voice that gave her a moment’s fear of him. Out of the dank little hut his voice followed her into the sunshine: “Is he there again?”
“No one,” she answered, “no one at all! Except—”
To the south, on the edge of the tiny settlement, a group of Esquimaux. It must have been their voices his quick ear had caught now and then above the surf.
Northward, up the curving beach, two men calking a boat. But though they stood out vivid in that wonderful light, Hildegarde knew they must be half a mile away; and so she told him.
“Is that all?”
Nothing more. Not a creature on the treeless hill rising behind the hovel. In front of where the girl stood no soul nearer than where the bark Beluga set her transfigured sails against the western limit of the world. Between her and that sole link with her own life, only the long barrier of the battling surf. From within, the feeble voice saying indistinguishable words that yet conveyed some feverish purpose. A sudden temptation seized the girl to call her dog and run.
“You are sure”—the weak voice came to meet her as she turned back—“sure there isn’t an old man about—fellow with a hungry face and a long, lank beard?”
“And an hour-glass and a scythe,” she filled out the picture to herself. Yes. One like that is lurking here at the door, and no man can bar him out and none refuse to follow at his call. But aloud, “No one,” she said.
“Then come in and shut the door.” And again she thought of flight, and again put the impulse by. But she said if the door were shut she must go, and made her excuse the need to keep an eye out for her friend. Then she sat down as before, where she could command the beach.