"Of course," she said. "He couldn't have stayed there. Mr. Austin put him into his canoe?" She stopped for a moment, and her voice seemed to change a trifle. "Did he find it necessary to touch him?"
"He did. In fact, the nigger got hold of him. One of them slipped on the bridge deck ladder and they rolled down it together."
Again there was silence, and all of them looked at Jefferson, who saw the question in Jacinta's eyes.
"No," he said. "Nothing came of it, though for a week or so I was horribly afraid. It isn't men like Austin who take that kind of thing, and it's possible it mayn't have been infectious, after all."
Muriel heard Jacinta softly draw in her breath, as though she had been under a strain which had suddenly relaxed. Then a little colour crept into her face and a sparkle into her eyes.
"Yes," said Jefferson, though nobody had spoken, "it was a daring thing. More, in fact, than I would have done. My partner has the cleanest kind of real hard sand in him."
He turned to Muriel with a little deprecatory gesture. "I had more at stake than he had—and I was afraid that night."
Jacinta sat still a while, a trifle flushed in face, for the scene Jefferson had very vaguely pictured had stirred her to the depths. The man whom she had sent forth had done more than she would ever have asked of him, and the gallantry of the action brought a dimness to her eyes. Then she remembered that it was not done recklessly, for he had, it seemed, decided calmly, which must have made it inexpressibly harder. There were, she could imagine, circumstances in which a man might more or less willingly risk his life, but the risk Austin had taken was horrible, and he stood to gain nothing when he quietly recognised the responsibility he had taken upon himself. It was with an overwhelming sense of confusion she remembered the jibes she had flung at him concerning his discretion, and yet under it there was still the sense of pride. After all, it was to please her he had gone to Africa.
"Well," said Jefferson quietly, "you are pleased with him?"
Jacinta met his gaze unwaveringly, and her voice had a little thrill in it.