And grounds for fear were not lacking. The Dark Islands lay some five days distant, east by north—on the line, therefore, of the marauders' way home. From the atoll they had already raided, he judged, from the number of dwellings and general appearances, they might have got some fifty or sixty souls, not more. Their holds would still be far from full. If they had invaded the Dark Islands in similar fashion, it was a stormy reception the next comers might expect. At best it would be a negative welcome, and a matter of slow and cautious approach to their few good graces; but if the islands had been raided, the work would be thrown back for years, and all his hopes with them. He could scarce eat or sleep for thinking of it, and the pricking off of their position each day on the chart, and the calculation of the hours that still intervened between them and full knowledge of how matters lay, were matters of supremest interest and absorbing anxiety.
He could settle to none of the ordinary routine, and his evident upsetting, the causes of which they perfectly understood, disturbed them all in like fashion.
He spoke little, even to Jean, and she never once, by word or look, expressed anything but the utmost sympathy and confidence in him.
He tramped the deck day and night almost, with eager outlook over the waste of waters ahead, and never a look behind unless at the seething bubbles of their long, straight wake, which told of the speed and directness of their flight.
Once only, in these days of biting anxiety, he said to her—
"Dearest, I am poor company at present. Can you forgive me? I am on the rack about these poor souls ahead. I cannot help fearing the worst, and it means so very much to us."
"I am with you, Ken, heart and soul. We can only pray for the best. If what you fear has happened, all we can do is to do our best to right it."
He shook his head unhopefully. The idea had taken possession of him that they would arrive only to find death and desolation and the wild fury of revenge.
"Even if it is so," said his comforter, "I can see possibility of good coming out of the evil."
"It will throw us back years," he said gloomily.