When she grew calmer she began again, this time with a sort of malignant fierceness that was equally inexplicable.
"My Jack, if I told you that I was a despicable coward and asked you to weigh anchor to-night and to leave the island without as much as going ashore, would you do it? Think before you answer, for heaven and hell depend upon it."
I suppose at some period of his life every man has his fate in his hand to do as he likes with. I had mine then, and, as will be seen, I threw it from me. Oh, if I had only taken the opportunity she offered and set sail without rifling that grave, what awful misery for both of us I should have averted! But, blind bat that I was, it was ordained that I should see everything in a wrong light, and so I began immediately to reproach her for her weakness, telling her that since she had come so far to do it, it would be worse than cowardice to return without carrying out her work.
"But, Jack," she said, "if you only knew, if you only knew?"
"If I knew what?" I asked. "Come, come, Juanita, what does all this mystery mean? What are you hinting at? You're in a very extraordinary mood to-night." I was beginning to grow impatient with her.
"Don't," she cried, preparing to burst into tears again, "don't scold me. If you could only know how we shall both look back on this night some day, and how it will comfort me to remember that at least you were not angry then!"
When she went below I lit my pipe and fell to work upon my own thoughts. I tried to recall her conversation and to find a reason for her extraordinary behaviour, but it was impossible. In vain also I endeavoured to rid myself of the feeling of approaching danger which possessed me. At last, unable to make head or tail of it, and thoroughly wretched, I sought my bunk in the hope of obtaining a little rest against the labours of the morrow.
My dreams were not pleasant ones. Juanita seemed to stand before me continually, gazing at me as she had done on deck, with tear-streaming face, imploring me to forgive her, always to forgive her. I don't remember ever to have spent a more miserable night. But it was only a foretaste of what was to come.
Shortly after daylight I awoke to hear the hands "washing down." I went on deck and had a bath; the clear green water braced me like a tonic. A more perfect morning could not be imagined. The sea lay around us, in colour a pale grey, and smooth as the inside of an oyster-shell. Ashore the rugged mountain peaks were enveloped in vast masses of white cloud, while on the lower lands every shrub and tree was gemmed with dew. A few sea-birds hovered round the schooner, and from far down the northern beach a spiral column of palest blue smoke ascended into the still morning air.
About half-an-hour before breakfast-time, Juanita came on deck, looking radiant; all signs of her last night's trouble had completely disappeared. Stepping out of the companion, she swept the sea with a proud, defiant glance, as though she had at length achieved something which other people had deemed impossible. Then her eyes fell on me, and she came across to where I stood, wishing me "good-morning" with a bright smile. I felt inclined to ask myself if this could be the same woman who had wept upon my shoulder the night before, and begged me in heart-broken accents to forgive her some imaginary transgression. After a few moments her glance wandered from the schooner and the open sea to the island, and then the expression upon her face (for I watched it continually) changed. When she came on deck, it was that of a woman who through much suffering had conquered; but when she looked towards the spot where the man she had once loved lay buried, it was the face of one who had still to prove that the struggle was not going against her. Just at that moment the bell sounded for breakfast, and leaving the deck to the mate, I escorted her below.