“Of course, dear lad,” I agreed; “but we must be planning also for means to leave the island, since only something awful awaits us here. You must tell me all that I should know. I won’t dance any longer to your mysteries and concealments.”
It was as though I had struck her. She stared, her eyes flooding, her lips trembling.
“Choseph,” she answered, “there are things that you must see and hear for yourself, and they will come tonight and tomorrow. I’ll take you——”
“I must know now,” I demanded, not realizing the harshness of my tone.
“Choseph, I——”
“Did you speak to me, sir?” came from Christopher, standing behind her.
“No, Christopher. We’ll wait, dear little brother.” The sunshine came swimming into her eyes again, and she made a grimace of triumph in which was an understanding that Christopher had disciplined me.
“You’ll be good now, won’t you, Choseph?” It was said in her most teasing manner, and I smiled.
We started under an angry sky through which heavy cloud-masses tumbled. It was a cautious journey. The very air seemed filled with expectancy. On the way we formulated a plan for tricking the guard.
In approaching the point of egress from the valley, Beela practiced the slyness of a lynx and the silence of a serpent. Every step was studied lest a twig snap; the leaves on the ground had been softened by the rain. Presently we sighted the guard—a draggled lot, unused to exposure and dispirited by the weather. There Beela left us in hiding. I now understood the perils that she had breasted in every trip to the valley. If they were so difficult under these conditions, how much more they must have been when fair weather made the guard alert and the ground noisy under foot!