“Oh, if she doesn’t startle you any worse than that,” he hinted darkly.
After dinner, Charlotte was left to a long hour of Mrs. Snodgrass’s company while their husbands reviewed war experiences and discussed that never-ending theme of exiles, the Government’s Philippine policy. It was ten o’clock when the Collingwoods bade good-bye to their hosts, with the usual promise of an exchange of visits. They found Maclaughlin waiting for them at the landing with the boat. He asked Mrs. Collingwood if she could steer and, being told that she could, vacated his place in the stern for her.
The night was dark but not cloudy, like the previous one. The moon would not rise till later, but the night azure of the sky was unclouded, and all the constellations of the tropic belt were glittering in its peaceful depths. The Southern Cross was there, and the so-called False Cross, while, in the north, the “Big Dipper” hung low and out of place. The water was phosphorescent, the oars turning in green fire, which sent a million prickles flashing away in the waves. When, now and then, a banca crept past them, its shape was outlined in the same lurid radiance, and the noiseless paddles dripped smears of unearthly flame. Charlotte pulled her tiller ropes in silence, keeping a wary eye out for unlighted craft, and watching the huddle of lights that was their launch. The coastguard cutter had left half an hour before. She was a faint glimmer of dots on the vague horizon; her smoke still lay a wavering, dark line across the night sky.
Suddenly a tremor of deadly fear shook Charlotte. There went the chain by which she had felt herself linked to the world and civilization. She had put herself at the mercy of a man of whom she knew, after all, next to nothing. Once aboard the launch, once out of Cuyo harbor, she was as utterly in his power as any prisoner in a dungeon is in the power of his captors. A wife may have rights and privileges in the eye of the law, but they avail her little on an island where no one of her own race save her husband’s friends steps foot.
Her crowding thoughts sickened her, though she had enough will and strength to guide the boat alongside the launch. Collingwood threw away his cigar and held out his hands. “Up with you,” he cried gayly.
The answer was a half movement and a groan as she dropped back with her face in her hands.
“Charlotte, are you sick? My God! What’s the matter?”
His vehemence and the fear in his voice reassured her. With indomitable pride she raised herself. “My ankle turned; it was sickening pain for an instant. It is all right, I think. The pain is growing less.”
She hated herself for the lie. She despised herself for the little pretence she still made at lameness as her husband would have picked her up bodily. “I can walk,” she said, and stepped over the thwarts.
Maclaughlin had clambered aboard ready to receive her as Martin lifted her. They put her in the steamer chair which was to serve her as a stateroom, and Martin hovered over, chafing her hands, offering her brandy from his pocket flask. Mr. Maclaughlin, after making certain that she was not seriously hurt, tactfully removed himself. Martin called to him to wait a minute before pulling out; that it might be necessary to get a doctor. Charlotte’s face burned. She was grateful for the darkness that hid it.