“Sure to have a spare one,” answered he, “but it gets me, that’s Chinee all over, they’re rattled.”
“Look!” she cried, “we’re moving!”
The cliff’s were beginning to glide landward and the bay’s mouth to widen, sea-gulls flew with them screaming a challenge, and the guillemots lining the cliff ledges broke into voice, echoes and guillemots storming at them as they went.
Then the sea opened wide under the grey breezy day and the great islands shewed themselves away to the east. To the west and the north all was clear water.
Raft and the girl walked to the after-rail and looked at the coast they were leaving; it seemed horribly near and the great black cliffs only a gunshot away. If the infernal wind of Kerguelen were to arise and blow from the north even now they might be seized and dashed back on those rocks, but the south-east wind held steady and the cliffs drew away and the coast lengthened and new cliffs and bays disclosed themselves, till they almost fancied they could see, away to the east, the great seal beach where the remains of the dead man lay in the cave and where the great sea-bulls were without doubt taking their ease on the rocks.
And now came the last call of Kerguelen, the voice of the kittiwakes:
“Get-away—get-away—get-away.”
Raft, as they stood and watched, put his arm over the shoulder of the girl and as she held the great hand that had saved her and brought her so far towards safety her mind, miles away, kept travelling the long road from the caves.
“I’m thinking of the bundle and all the poor things in it,” said she, “it will lie there forever on the beach, waiting to be picked up—it’s strange.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing myself,” said Raft, “and the old harpoon I licked that chap across the head with.”