"Edith," I whispered, as I took her hand, "I am a common sailorman, but if you could love me I—I—"
I stopped in confusion, and as she had done on a former occasion, she came to the rescue of my stammering tongue.
"You are a big, true man," she murmured. "If you had not come with us we should not have returned from that awful place. God let you listen to that song of the White Waterfall so that we might be saved."
Some minutes afterward she released herself from my arms. "Let us find Will and Barbara," she said softly. "We will share each other's happiness."
And as I followed her across the poop, a tremendous surge of joy rose up and filled my heart. The whole world was clean and good, and in my glorious exultation I whispered a prayer for the soul of John Leith, alias Black Fernando.