Ten minutes ago there had been fifteen live Chinamen on that beach.
Raft was bleeding from a cut on the arm, his face was gashed above the beard, a knife had ripped his coat and the back of his left hand shewed another wound.
He was laughing and carrying on like a man in drink and now that her stomach was relieved an extraordinary light-headedness seized her. Like Raft, she seemed drunk.
She had been snatched for a moment into a world where to kill was the only alternative to death or worse than death. For a moment she had lived in the Stone Age, she had fought like a savage animal and with the fury of the female, more terrific than the rage of the male. She had been pushed to the edge of things, and it was she who had turned the fight. The man she had killed was in the act of knifing Raft in the back.
“The boat!” cried Raft.
She struggled to her feet, steadied herself, and came to the boat. They pushed it out till it was nearly water borne; she scrambled in, he followed, and pushed off. Out in the bay the high black cliffs rose above them as if pushed by a scene shifter, the light-headed laughing raving feeling left her, and as they came alongside of the barque to starboard and tied up to the channel plates she was clear headed and calm and able to get on board by the channel without assistance.
On the deck she tottered and fell in the dead swoon of exhaustion.
It is a long journey to the Stone Age and back and the man or woman who makes it is never quite, quite the same again.