"What?"
"Turn your back. I'm undressing."
He heard her stripping, kneeling in the ferns behind him,—heard the rip of delicate fabric and the rustle of silk-lined garments falling.
Presently she said: "Can I be noticed if I slip down through the bushes to the water?"
"O God," he whispered, "be careful, Yellow-hair. … No, the man in the boat is keeping his distance. He'll never see you. Don't splash when you take the water. Swim like an otter, under, until you're well out. … You're young and sturdy, slim as you are. You'll get through if the chill of Isla doesn't paralyse you. But you've got to do it, Yellow-hair; you've GOT to do it."
"Yes. Hold them off, Kay. I'll be back. Hold them off, dear Kay.
Will you?"
"I'll try, Yellow-hair…. Good luck! Don't try to come back!"
"Good luck," she whispered close to his ear; and, for a second he felt her slim young hands on his shoulders—lightly—the very ghost of contact. That was all. He waited a hundred years. Then another. Then, his weapons levelled, listening, he cast a quick glance backward. At the foot of the Pulpit a dark ripple lapped the rock. Nothing there now; nothing in Isla Water save far in the stars' lustre the shadowy boat lying motionless.
Toward dawn they tried to rush the Pulpit. He used a heavy fragment of rock on the first man up, and as his quarry went smashing earthward, a fierce whine burst from the others: "Shot out! All together now!" But his pistol spoke again and they recoiled, growling, disheartened, cursing the false hope that had re-nerved them.
It was his last shot, however. He had a heavy clasp-knife such as salmon-anglers carry. He laid his empty pistols on the rocky ledge. Very patiently he felt for frost-loosened masses of rock, detached them one by one and noiselessly piled them along the ledge.