“Not on this side, at least. Come on! We don’t want to miss the ebb.”
Blake’s impatience discouraged further inquiries. He had turned as he spoke, and the others followed him, walking close together. The pace was sharp for Winthrope, and his ankle soon began to twinge. He was compelled to accept Miss Leslie’s invitation to take her arm. With her help, he managed to keep within a few yards of Blake.
Instead of plunging into the mangrove wood, which here was undergrown with a thicket of giant ferns, Blake skirted around in the open until they came to the seashore. The tide was at its lowest, and he waved his club towards a long sand spit which curved out around the seaward edge of the mangroves. Whether this was part of the river’s bar, or had been heaped up by the cyclone would have been beyond Winthrope’s knowledge, had the question occurred to him. It was enough for him that the sand was smooth and hard as a race track.
Presently the party came to the end of the spit, where the river water rippled over the sand with the last feeble out-suck of the ebb. On their right they had a sweeping view of the river, around the flank of the mangrove screen. Blake halted at the edge of the water, and half turned.
“Close up,” he said. “It’s shallow enough; but do you see those logs over on the mud-bank? Those are alligators.”
“Mercy!–and you expect me to wade among such creatures?” cried Miss Leslie.
“I went almost across an hour ago, and they didn’t bother me any. Come on! There’s wind in that cloud out seaward. Inside half an hour the surf’ll be rolling up on this bar like all Niagara.”
“If we must, we must, Miss Genevieve,” urged Winthrope. “Step behind me, and gather up your skirts. It’s best to keep one’s clothes dry in the tropics.”
The girl blushed, and retained his arm.
“I prefer to help you,” she replied.