After carrying supplies to the mate, he came back for her, and they went ashore for fresh water, and he providently secured a couple more rabbits.
The Girl was very quiet, depressed, and very unlike her usual bright self. But he was not surprised. Her anxiety for the future was enough to account for it, and there was, besides, the reaction from the strenuous upsetting through which they had just passed.
Each morning he went across to see how the sick man was getting on, and she let him go alone, but followed him with anxious eyes, and stood in the bows watching till she saw him safely on his way back.
On the third day they took advantage of the enemy's enforced inactivity to go out to the pile and make good the losses caused by the fire. And all the time they were away The Girl was in a state of dire anxiety lest he should have discovered their absence and got across and fired their ship. But to her great relief it was there all right when they got back, and showed no signs of visitation.
On the fourth morning Wulf found his patient sufficiently recovered to be spoken to plainly as to the future, and he did not mince matters. While he spoke, the mate lay watching him through almost closed eyes, just one narrow line between the heavy lids catching the light from the port and imparting a singularly sinister look to the haggard face. The veiled eyes watched him cautiously, charged with what?—suspicion? hatred? treachery? All these, Wulf imagined. But they gave no sign. They were like the eyes of a snake, of a caged beast being rated by its keeper.
"Your dastardly attempt on us failed," said Wulf, to the steely glint of the black soul behind the narrowed lids. "And now,—understand! You are outside the pale. Leave us alone and we leave you alone. Interfere further with us and I will kill you as I would a dangerous beast. Now you are warned, and your blood be on your own head."
The other made no sign. The narrow gleam of the dark eyes out of the rigid impassivity of the dark face was more bodeful than a torrent of curses.
As he left the ship, Wulf picked up and took with him the only two axes he could find. Magnanimity had its limits, but it was wasted here.
"Well?" asked The Girl anxiously, when he returned.
"He is almost himself again, but very much weakened of course. I have given him final warning that if he molests us further I shall kill him."