“No, no,” he groaned; “I dare not.”
“And you that cold and hungry?”
“I’ve tasted nothing but the limpets since that night.”
“Limpets!” she cried, with a tone of contempt in her voice, “why they ain’t even good for bait. And there are no mussels here. Look here, my dear lad, I’ve got a lobster. No, no; it’s raw. Look here; you go back to where you hide, and I’ll go and get you something to eat, and be back as soon as I can.”
“You will?” he said pitifully.
“Course I will.”
“And you’ll keep my secret?”
“Now don’t you say that again, my lad, because it aggravates me. There, you go back and wait, and if I don’t come again this side of ten o’clock Poll Perrow’s dead!”
She bent down, kissed his cold forehead, and hurried back among the rocks, splashing and climbing, till he saw her begin to ascend the narrow rift in the cliff; and in a few minutes the square basket, which looked like some strange crustacean of monstrous size creeping out of the sea and up the rocks, disappeared in the gathering gloom; and Harry Vine, half-delirious from hunger, crept slowly back into the cave, half wondering whether it was not all a dream.