“Hello!” he shouted as the fire, flaring up, revealed her face. “I thought you were at home on the wreck. I saw a light there. I was sure of it. Had to come in there for some nets I left on the shore, then I was going over to see how you were getting on and to warn you.”
“No,” said Florence, “there can’t be a light on the wreck. No one is there.”
“Yes.” Swen’s tone carried conviction. “There was a light.”
“Then,” said Florence, “Jeanne has returned, or—or someone else is there.
“Greta!” she called. “Greta! Wake up! Someone is on the wreck. We must go there.
“We’ll leave the tent as it is,” she said five minutes later as Greta, hastily dressed and half asleep, stepped out in the air of night.
“I’ll take you over,” Swen said. “The sea is roughing up a bit.”
“Swen,” Florence said as they went pop-popping through the narrows, “you said you meant to warn us. Warn us of what?”
“Probably nothing.” Swen seemed ill at ease. “There’ll be a storm—just a storm, that’s all. Two waves, like tidal waves, came near swamping my boat. It’s a sign, the fishermen say. But then, we are superstitious. That’s it, I guess.”
For all that, when he had landed the girls at the wreck and had made sure Jeanne, not some stranger, was there, he turned his boat about and steamed away at full speed.