They paused by the outskirts of the village and peered toward its clustered, ruddy firelights flickering out upon the shore. There was no one abroad on that empty, nebulous expanse, but they could hear stir and laughter among the huts and the shrill wailing of a child.
"It is still too early," he murmured, and led her back to the cover of a thicket.
Miss Matilda was aware of a slackening from the keen excitement and zested peril of their escape. She had a vague feeling that the boat should have been ready to waft them miraculously over star-lit seas.
"How are you going to get one?" she asked.
"Any of these people would lend me a dugout, but I thought merely to take the first at hand."
"I see none."
"No—they are gone. Perhaps the men are fishing on the reef to-night.... But that would be strange too," he added, perplexed.
Somehow the delay, the uncertainty, began to weigh upon her like an affront. She missed their wild communion, the high, buoying sense of romance and emprise and impossibilities trampled under foot. She missed the single complicity of the stream and its turbulent heartening. Here were voices too, but these were harsh and displeasing, common human voices. An odor of cookery and unclean hearths stole greasily down the air. The fretful child began screaming again and went suddenly silent at a brusque clap. Somebody fell to quarreling in a muttered monotone.
"What are you going to do?" she demanded.
"It will be better if I go search."