CHAPTER XIII
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
Morning found Winthrope more irritable and peevish than ever. Though he had not been called on watch by Blake until long after midnight, he had soon fallen asleep at his post and permitted the fire to die out. Shortly before dawn, Blake was roused by a pack of jackals, snarling and quarrelling over the half-dried seafowl. To charge upon the thieves and put them to flight with a few blows of his club took but a moment. Yet daylight showed more than half the drying frames empty.
Blake was staring glumly at them, with his broad back to Winthrope, when Miss Leslie appeared. The sudden cessation of Winthrope’s complaints brought his companion around on the instant. The girl stood before him, clad from neck to foot in her leopard-skin dress.
“Well, I’ll be–dashed!” he exclaimed, and he stood staring at her open-mouthed.
“I fear it will be warm. Do you think it becoming?” she asked, flushing, and turning as though to show the fit of the costume.
“Do I?” he echoed. “Miss Jenny, you’re a peach!”
“Thank you,” she said. “And here is the skirt. I have ripped it open. You see, it will make a fine flag.”
“If it’s put up. Seems a pity, though, to do that, when we’re getting on so fine. What do you say to leaving it down, and starting a little colony of our own?”
Miss Leslie raised the skirt in her outstretched hands. Behind it her face became white as the cloth.
“Well?” demanded Blake soberly, though his eyes were twinkling.