Halfway up to the farm-house a memory shot through Whitaker's mind as startling as lightning streaking athwart a peaceful evening sky. He stopped with an exclamation that brought the girl beside him to a standstill with questioning eyes.
"But the others—!" he stammered.
"The others?" she repeated blankly.
"They—the men who brought you here—?"
Her lips tightened. She moved her head in slow negation.
"I have seen nothing of either of them."
Horror and pity filled him, conjuring up a vision of wild, raving waters, mad with blood-lust, and in their jaws, arms and heads helplessly whirling and tossing.
"Poor devils!" he muttered.
She said nothing. When he looked for sympathy in her face, he found it set and inscrutable.
He delayed another moment, thinking that soon she must speak, offer him some sort of explanation. But she remained uncommunicative. And he could not bring himself to seem anxious to pry into her affairs.