She swathed herself in a blanket and sat up, looking at me sleepily.
“You came to see me swim,” she said.
“And I’ve brought you a fish’s silver skin to swim in,” I replied, pointing at the satchel.
She cast a swift glance at her father, who, with the 200 gun on his knees, sat as though hypnotized by the beauty of its workmanship. Her bright eyes fell on the gun; she understood in a flash.
“Then you’ll take me?”
“If you swim as well as I hope you can.”
“Turn your back!” she cried.
I wheeled about and sat down on the settle beside the poacher. There came a light thud of small, bare feet on the stone floor, then silence. The poacher looked up.
“She’s gone to the ocean,” he said; “she has the mania for baths—like you English.” And he fell to rubbing the gunstock with dirty thumb.
The saffron light in the room was turning pink when Jacqueline reappeared on the threshold in her ragged skirt and stained velvet bodice half laced, with the broken points hanging, carrying an armful of driftwood.