"Why in the world should you threaten me, Mrs. Livingstone?"
Mrs. Livingstone's lips parted in a terrible smile as she walked away.
"You? Why, I was not thinking of you at all."
Above the Egret a crippled white ibis, with a broken leg impeding its flight, was flying clumsily across the river. Close above it, with deadly intent, sailed a brown hawk. The hawk struck, but in spite of its handicap the ibis swerved in time to escape the deadly talons. Then pursued and pursuer disappeared in the jungle across the river.
At Gumbo Key the black, scowlike hull carrying the ditching machinery, moving slowly in tow of a gasoline tug, was seen making headway across the bay toward the mouth of the river. As the Egret curved gracefully round the Key and came alongside the tug to place Payne aboard, Annette came and stood by his side.
"You're not going back with us?" she asked.
"No. It's better that I shouldn't. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I suppose it is." Her eyes looked out across the bay to the open sea beyond. "Oh! I wish I weren't going back there; I wish I would never see that place again."
"Do you mean that?"
"How can you doubt it!"