The girl drew in a deep, shuddering sigh, and sank back. Her hand struck against Winthrope’s foot. She turned about quickly and looked at him. He was lying upon his face. She hastened to turn him upon his side, and to feel his forehead. It was cool and moist. He was fast asleep and drenched with sweat. The great shock of his pain and fear and excitement had broken his fever.
With the relief and joy of this discovery, the girl completely relaxed. Not observing Winthrope’s wounds, which had bled little, she sought to force a way out through the entrance. It was by no means an easy task to free the wedged framework, and when, after much pulling and pushing, she at last tore the mass loose, she found herself perspiring no less freely than Winthrope.
She was far too preoccupied, however, to consider what this might mean. Her first thought was of the fire. She ran to her rude stone fireplace and raked over the ashes. They were still warm, but there was not a live ember among them. Yet she realized that Winthrope must have hot food when he wakened, and Blake had carried with him the magnifying glass. For a little she stood hesitating. But the defeat of the jackals had given her courage and resolution such as she had never before known. She returned into the cave, and chose the sharpest of her stakes. Having made certain that Winthrope was still asleep, she set off boldly down the cleft.
At the first turn she came upon Blake’s thorn barricade. It stretched across the narrowest part of the cleft in an impenetrable wall, twelve feet high. Only in the centre was a gap, which could have been filled by Blake in less than two hours’ work. The girl’s eyes brightened. She herself could gather the thorn-brush and fill the gap before night. They no longer need fear the jackals or even the larger beasts of prey. None the less, they must have fire.
Spurred on by the thought, she was about to spring through the barricade when she heard the tread of feet on the path beyond. She crouched down, and peered through the tangle of brush in the edge of the gap. Less than ten paces away Blake was plodding heavily up the trail. She stepped out before him.
“You–you! Are you alive?” she gasped.
“’Live? You bet your boots!” came back the grim response. “You bet I’m alive–though I had to go Jonah one better to do it. The whale heaved him up; I heaved up the whale–and it took about a barrel of sea-water to do it.”
“Sea-water?”
“Sure . . . . I tumbled over twice on the way. But I made the beach. Lord! how I pumped in the briny deep! Guess I won’t go into details–but if you think you know anything about seasickness– Whew! Lucky for yours truly, the tide was just starting out, and the wind off shore. I’d fallen in the water, and the Jonah business laid me out cold. Didn’t know anything until the tide came up again and soused me.”
“I am very glad you’re not dead. But how you must have suffered! You are still white, and your face is all creased.”