There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam, though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.
"You got eat," said Bela. "Tak' it."
"Not from you," he returned bitterly.
There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died away around the point.
Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.
The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes of escape and revenge.
He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew in a direction favourable to carry him ashore. The trouble was the nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a problem.
He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought. This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he determined to go and get them.
Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to assert his manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.