"Who to, Freda? Whom must you marry if we are rescued?"
"The mate—Mr. Adams. Not you, John Owen—not you. I do not like you."
She was unbalanced, of course; but the speech pained him immeasurably, and he made no answer. He searched the clean-cut horizon for a moment, and when he looked back she was close to him, with the infantile smile on her face, candor and sanity in her gray eyes. Involuntarily he extended his arms, and she nestled within them.
"You will be married, Freda," he said; "you will be married, and to me."
He held her tightly and kissed her lips; but the kiss ended in a crashing sound, and a shock of pain in his whole body which expelled the breath from his lungs. The moonlit island, sandy beach, blue sea and sky were swallowed in a blaze of light, which gave way to pitchy darkness, with rain on his face and whistling wind in his ears, while he clung with both arms, not to a girl, but to a hard, wet, and cold mizzentopgallant-yard whose iron jack-stay had bumped him severely between the eyes. Below him in the darkness a scream rang out, followed by the roar of the mate: "Are you all right up there? Want any help?"
He had fallen four feet.
When he could speak he answered: "I'm all right, sir." And catching the royal foot-rope dangling from the end of the yard above him, he brought it to its place, passed the seizing, and finished furling the royal. But it was a long job; his movements were uncertain, for every nerve in his body was jumping in its own inharmonious key.
"What's the matter wi' you up there?" demanded the mate when he reached the deck; and a yellow-clad figure drew near to listen.
"It was nothing, sir; I forgot about the foot-rope."
"You're a bigger lunkhead than I thought. Go forrard."