He decided to make a short tour of the wood during the afternoon. At first he argued it would be wise to walk far down the coast, in the hope of finding a village of some description along the water front. Then he decided that a trip to the north, through the wood, would be better, as the lower coast could be surveyed from the summit of the great rock.
"You are not afraid to stay here alone for a couple of hours, are you, Tennys?" he asked, discerning solicitude in her face.
"I am not afraid for myself, but for you. You must be very careful, Hugh, and come back to me safely. What can I do? What shall I do if you never come back?" she cried.
"Nothing can happen to me--nothing in the world. See, it's nearly one o'clock now. I'll be back by five. And I'll be careful, so do not be troubled. We must find the way out of this wilderness. Be brave and I'll soon be with you again."
He was soon in the depths of the forest, skirting the little bay toward the north. She stood beside their stone festal board, watching him through uneasy eyes till he disappeared completely from view. A sense of loneliness so overpowering that it almost crushed her fell upon this frail, tender woman as she stood there on the edge of the South Sea jungle, the boundless sea at her back. The luxuries and joys of a life to which she had been accustomed came up in a great flash before her memory's eye, almost maddening in their seductiveness. She glanced at the dress she wore, and a faint, weary smile came to her eyes and lips. Instead of the white, perfect yachting costume, she saw the wretched, shrunken, stained, shapeless garment that to her eyes would have looked appalling on the frame of a mendicant. Her costly shoes, once small and exquisitely moulded to her aristocratic feet, were now soiled and ugly.
From the palace to the jungle! From the wealth of fashion to the poverty of nature! From the scores of titled admirers to the single brave American who shared life with her on the bleak rock, mourning for a love that might never be restored by the unkind depths. A vision of yesterday and to-day! Turning to the sea, she breathed a prayer for the salvation of Grace Vernon, her eyes dimming as she thought of the blithe, cheery girl who had become so dear to her, and who was all the world to Hugh Ridgeway.
Her thoughts went then to Lord Huntingford, her husband. There was scant regret in her heart over the fate of the old nobleman. She was not cruel enough to rejoice, but there was a certain feeling of relief which she could not quell, try as she would, in the belief that he had gone down to death and a younger, nobler man spared. The last she saw of her husband was when he broke past the officers and plunged out upon the deck, leaving her to her fate. That he had been instantly swept overboard she had no doubt. All she could remember of her thoughts at that thrilling moment was the brief, womanly cry for mercy to his soul. After that came the lurch which prostrated her, and then Ridgeway's cry, "Be brave, dearest!"
Bitter tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of the strong-hearted Veath and the forsaken American girl--and all of the others in that merry company. It was not in such anguish as this that she summed up her individual loss.
Ridgeway was soon in the thick of the jungle. For two or three hours he plunged through beautiful glades, over swelling knolls, across tiny streams, but always through a waste of nature that, to all appearance, had never been touched by a human being save himself.
At last he dropped wearily upon a grassy mound and resigned himself to the conviction that they had been swept upon an absolutely unexplored, perhaps undiscovered, portion of the globe. It did not occur to his discouraged mind that he had covered less than five miles of what might be a comparatively small piece of uninhabited land and that somewhere not far distant lay the civilization for which he sought. His despairing mind magnified the horrors of their position to such an extent that he actually wondered how long it would be before death broke down their feeble resistance. Arising despondently, he turned his steps in the direction of the little cave.