“Now, get some sleep. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Wat said quietly, and the two native women helped her stumble inside.
Roberta was too weary to pay much attention to anything, except that the room she entered appeared to be a long, low one with many bright colored draperies hanging on the wall. In a moment she was led to a rude bed, the top of which was piled high with pillows, and as she seated herself on the edge, she saw another one a few feet away. Across the top of it lay Mrs. Pollzoff, already sound asleep. Nomie and her young daughter made short work of helping their charge out of a part of her clothes, but they hadn’t finished, when her weary lids closed over her eyes as she fell asleep.
Although she had no idea what time it was when she opened her eyes again, the girl Sky-Pilot had slept around the clock. The Indians had certainly made her very comfortable among the huge pillows, and now she yawned and stretched luxuriously. Turning over she saw that close to the bed the girl, Natell, was seated, her small brown hands busily darting back and forth over a piece of weaving. Her keen ears must have been alert for a sound from her charge, for she immediately called shrilly. “No-mee, No-mee!” Nomie came at once and glanced at the blinking young pilot.
“She is awake,” announced Natell.
“Of course I am awake, but—” A bit of the recollection of the horrors through which she had gone, returned to her mind, and instinctively she glanced toward the second bed where she had seen Mrs. Pollzoff recovering from her own exhaustion, but the woman wasn’t there and the bed had been smoothed. As far as she could tell there was no one in the room but the natives and herself. “Where am I? I mean, what is this place?” she asked curiously.
“Island,” Nomie answered. She was getting the white girl’s clothes out of a queer sort of chest that looked as if it had been made of pieces of driftwood. As the woman showed no inclination of imparting more information, Roberta decided that it might be the better part of wisdom to be content with what she had learned.
“Fine!” Natell spread the garments before their owner with true feminine interest, and in another moment, Nomie produced the traveling bag from behind one of the curtains, as well as the wrist watch they had taken off to add to her comfort while she slept. The time-piece was going but Roberta stared at it in amazement, for it showed less than two hours later than the hour they had landed.
“How long did I sleep?” she asked quickly.
“One sun,” Nomie smiled at her.