The boat was close now, beautiful and buoyant, and white as a gull, smacking the sea as she came, shining with spray, the green water under her showing clear as an emerald. Now, she was only an arm’s length away, and now, he was grasping the starboard thwart. She heeled over slightly as he got his elbow on the thwart and peeped in. She was empty of everything but the bottom boards and a pair of sculls, clean scoured with spray; a dead flying-fish was lying washing about in the few inches of water she had shipped; it was newly dead and had struck her only perhaps an hour ago.
He worked his way round to the stern, boarded her and stood upright.
He was free of the island at last, but he would have to land to get his clothes and some provisions and water.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ESCAPE
He stood for a moment balancing himself, his eyes sweeping the sky-line to southward, which shewed neither sail nor stain of smoke, and as he stood he heard the island calling to him.
“Hi! Hi! Hi! you there in the boat! come back! come back! Hi! Think you to escape us? Ha! ha!—hi! Fishing, wheeling, calling, O the weariness, the blueness, the waves, the wind, the sun; they are ours and they are yours, forever—forever—forever. Hi!”
Through the voices of the gulls came the monotonous tune of the beach across the bright morning sea. The tent flap had got loose again and was beckoning. Come what might, provisions and water must be taken on board and the clothes he had left on the reef spar recovered.
He felt like a man who had just escaped from a haunted house, yet he had to go back. To land again on that terrible spot and leave the boat whilst he hunted for the things was an act requiring real courage, but it had to be done.