Floyd through it all had acted almost automatically and as if firing at a target. The whole business seemed strangely impersonal and unreal. That he should be standing there, killing men like flies, seemed part of the everyday business of life, and yet, at the back of his mind, something was crying out against it all, a voice small as though it had traveled from a thousand miles away, and without substance or sound or weight in effect on his mind.
He stood with the taste of the cartridge smoke in his mouth, staring at the beach, while from behind him he could hear the sound of the sculls in the rowlocks as Isbel strained at the oars.
They were now well out from the shore, and he took his place in the boat at the sculls, while Isbel got on the raft.
The beach they were leaving was all trodden up, and the bodies of the two dead men lay, one huddled up as though he were asleep, the other spread-eagled and looking like a brown starfish, the spear he had been carrying so valiantly standing beside him, barb pointing to the sky.
The light wind was blowing the dry sand in little eddies, and under the blazing sunlight the salt white beach and the emerald shallows of the lagoon made a dazzling picture. Nothing could seem farther removed from death or the thought of death than this brilliant scene, where the slain were lying unburied and Death himself was watching from the grove of trees that formed its background.
Isbel stood on the raft as he towed it, her hand shading her eyes, her gaze fixed on the shore.
Floyd, recalling her horror of the hanging and the effect it produced upon her, could not help wondering at her attitude now, till he remembered the difference between the cold-blooded execution of a man and the killing of a man in self-defense.
When they had reached the middle of the lagoon, she turned from gazing at the shore and sat down on the raft. They did not speak to one another till the dinghy was landed and the raft moored by a long rope which they tied to one of the seats of the quarter boat, which was lying high and dry on the sand.
"Well," said Floyd, when this was finished, "we are in for it now, Isbel, you and I. These fellows won't sit down and do nothing, or, if they do, I am greatly mistaken."
"No," said Isbel, "they will try to kill us." She said it quite simply, as though she were talking of some matter of little moment.