"Don't worry about me. If it were not that the others may be troubled, and I trust Mrs. Graham and Mrs. Burton went to their rooms before anyone missed us, and if you were not wearing yourself out, do you know I could enjoy this experience. I am not in the slightest degree frightened, I suppose I am a kind of an adventurer."
A quarter of an hour after, Allan and Gill beheld a darker line of land and rowing closer their boat grounded in the sand amid shallow water.
"I'll carry you ashore, it will be simpler than trying to get in by any other method. Then I'll wade out and drag the boat after us."
"I can wade, please don't, I am far too heavy," Gill protested, remembering the character of illness from which Allan Drain had suffered at the time of their first meeting.
As he lifted her from her place and her arms closed about his throat, there was no sign of weakness in her companion.
Five minutes later she was seated on the dry sand, able to see the tall figure struggling in the darkness and drawing the heavy boat ashore.
"You should have allowed me to help, it was not fair," Gill argued almost angrily, as, panting for breath, he dropped down at her side with the boat only a few feet away.
CHAPTER XII
THE CAMP FIRE
"No, I don't need your coat. With the heat from the fire the white scarf is sufficiently warm. I am grateful to you for making me bring it along. I don't think we had best sit still at present. You are so overheated, it will be wiser to cool off slowly. Do you mind my taking your arm? I am blind in the dark, blinder than most persons, and although this coast is chiefly sand there are a few rocks in unexpected places." The girl extended her hand.