“So you will continue to risk your life for us? I think that is very brave and generous, Mr. Blake!”
“How’s that?” demanded Blake, not a little puzzled. He was fully conscious of the risk; but this was the first intimation he had received or conceived that his motives were other than selfish–“Um-m! So that’s the ticket. Getting generous, eh?”
“Not getting–you are generous! When I think of all you have done for us! Had it not been for you, I am sure we should have died that first day ashore.”
“Well, don’t blame me. I couldn’t have let a dog die that way; and then, a fellow needs a Man Friday for this sort of thing. As for you, I haven’t always had the luck to be favored with ladies’ company.”
“Thank you, Mr. Blake. I quite appreciate the compliment. But now, I must put on supper.”
Blake followed her graceful movements with an intentness which, in turn, drew Winthrope’s attention to himself. The Englishman smiled in a disagreeable manner, and resumed his work on the bows, with the look of one mentally preoccupied. After supper he found occasion to spend some little time among the bamboos.
When at sunset Miss Leslie withdrew into the baobab, Winthrope somewhat officiously insisted upon helping her set up her screen in the entrance. As he did so, he took the opportunity to hand her a bamboo knife, and to draw her attention to several double-pointed bamboo stakes which he had hidden under the litter.
“What is it?” she asked, troubled by his furtive glance back at Blake.
“Merely precaution, you know,” he whispered. “The ground in there is quite soft. It will be no trouble, I fancy, to put up the stakes, with their points inclined towards the entrance.”
“But why–”