She was quite tall, and upon her young figure, long of waist and lithe, yet well-rounded, the thin white dress of the subtropics was but a filament, a feminine accessory to the virgin beauty and the message of her budding womanhood.
Payne heard a soft, heavy step at his back and saw that Higgins, too, had answered the call of dawn.
The girl stood entranced by the spectacle before her. She placed her hands upon her bosom and stood with uplifted visage, like a young goddess of the dawn. She stretched her arms passionately out over the sea and said quite loudly and fervently:
"I love you, I love you!"
In the shadow of the palm Payne and Higgins began to retreat guiltily.
"No use your sticking round, Payne," whispered the engineer. "You're too late; she's took. You heard what she said."
"Sh-h!"
"I love you," repeated the girl with the same ecstatic tone and pose.
"Ah! How I love you!"
From the arch over the path there dropped with a swish and crash the ten-foot branch of a coco palm, falling without warning or apparent reason, as the overripe branches of coco palms do fall. The girl whirled round; and Payne was shocked and chilled to the marrow by the sight of her as she faced toward them.
Beautiful she was, her face as beautiful as her vibrant young body, but for the moment she was like a thing at bay. Fear shown in her eyes, not the passing fear of a sudden alarm, but a deep-seated, wearing fear suddenly awakened. Her face was a deadly white. For an instant it seemed to Roger that the depths of her soul were revealed, and at the mystery and dread in her eyes he took a step forward. He did not speak. Her expression baffled him. He stood irresolute for the moment, and in that moment she recovered her poise. She drew herself upright slowly, the red came flowing back into the cream of her cheeks, and she relaxed, leaning her weight upon one foot. As she looked at Roger, and from him to the weather-beaten Higgins and back to Roger, her eyes grew easy with assurance.