"But I should only tell you because I loved you."
"That is precisely why I am going away. I want to work hard, that I may prevent your ever being called upon to tell me."
"We are getting a little out of our depths, are we not?"
They had reached a little clearing in the jungle. Here she stopped, and taking his great brown hand in hers, stroked it with her own white fingers. Then, looking up into his face with a faint little smile, through which the tears threatened at any moment to burst, she said:
"Go, and may God prosper your labours!"
That was the last of her opposition.
Two days later Ellison gave the signal for departure, and the three luggers weighed anchor and stood out of the bay. His own boat was the last to leave, and until the headland shut her from his sight, Ellison waved a farewell to the white figure standing in the veranda. Then the sea took him into her arms, and for a month the station knew him no more.
It was sundown on the twenty-third day at sea. Work was almost over. The sun was little more than a hand's breadth above the horizon, and another hour would find him gone. Hardly a ripple disturbed the pearly serenity of the ocean; the only spot of land to be seen was a tiny island just peeping up on the sky-line away to starboard. Ellison sat upon the combing of the main hatch, holding the diver's life-line in his hand, watching the movements of the other boats, and listening to the throbbing of the air-pump on the deck beside him. It was nearly time for the diver to ascend.