He did not turn his eyes from the undulations of the gray horizon. "Would you have me rot in this place for the remainder of my life?" he asked, harshly, in her language.
The poor girl sobbed for an hour after that, and reproved her heart for the image of a god it had set up. She tried to overthrow the idol from its inner shrine; she tried to change it to a grim symbol of hate; she pressed her face to the coarse herbage, and tore the sod with her fingers.
"Miwandi! Come to me, little one," cried the man from the edge of the cliff.
Her anger, her bitterness, vanished like thinnest smoke. She sprang up and ran to him. He drew her to his side, and with his right hand pointed southward across the glinting deep.
"The Cristobal!" he cried. "Good God, I'll stake my life on it!"
So intense was his satisfaction at the sight of those unmistakable topsails that his selfish affection for the woman lighted again. He pressed his lips to the tear-wet cheek; and immediately the simple creature was in the seventh heaven of bliss.
While the gray flake of sail expanded on the horizon, Pierre d'Antons and the woman hurriedly and roughly rebuilt the walls of the fireplace, lit and fed a blaze, and piled it high with moss and rotten bark. The thick pillar of smoke arose like a tree, and bent in the moderate wind. Miwandi busied herself with breaking the wood to the required length and carrying damp moss. For several minutes the smoke was allowed to ascend in an unbroken shaft. Then D'Antons cut it off for a few seconds, let it rise again, broke it again, and again let it stream aloft, uninterrupted. He had signalled his name according to the code of the Cristobal.
The welcome ship gradually enlarged to the eager eyes of the watchers on the cape. North, east, and south there was no other sail in sight. At last three flags ran up to the topforemast and fluttered out. The question was read instantly by D'Antons, who returned to his fire and interrupted the stream of smoke five times in quick succession. The translation of that was "All's well. You may approach without danger."
A message of congratulation appeared promptly against the bellying foresail of the Cristobal; and the watchers saw the rolls of white foam gleaming like wool under the forging of the bow.
D'Antons was cordially welcomed aboard the Cristobal. Miwandi was received without question. The acting commander of the ship was a grizzled Spanish mariner by the name of Silva,—a fellow steeped in crime and uncertain of temper, yet possessed of a marvellous devotion for D'Antons, which was due to an act of kindness performed by the Frenchman years before, in the town of Panama.