As he spoke the Chinaman gently lifted one injured foot. She shrank from his touch and put out a hand to thrust him away.
"You be 'flaid flor Chang?" asked the giant wistfully. The glance with which he looked up at her made the woman ashamed that she had obeyed the impulse of littleness. She caught Rowgowskii staring at her from across the fire. His glance was a challenge to all the fineness of her being.
"I beg your pardon, Chang. I am not afraid of you," she said. She withdrew her protesting hand.
"You my master flen. He say by me when I tell him you hol' him han' in boat: 'Chang, maybe I go-an die. All hell kom-men you go-an save she.' Bimeby to-night when big sea kom-men you save my master. You save Chang. You like me die—I go-an die flor you. You must no be flaid."
The while Chang talked his long yellow fingers were going swiftly over Emily's feet. A surgeon's skill was in their touch. His head was bent, hearkening, where he manipulated the ankle and toe joints, for a sound which would betoken a fracture.
"No bone bloke," he announced with finality.
"Thank you, Chang," Emily said gratefully, and presently she drew from him an account of what had happened following the upheaval.
Chang had been standing near the fire on the hillside. He had been thrown down even as she and Lavelle were. The island had broken apart and a great sea had come and gone quickly. The earth went out from under him. It flaked away, carrying him down to the sea with it. He could not stop himself. Just as he was rolling over the edge of the cliff he felt an arm and caught hold of it. It checked his descent. It was Lavelle's arm that he caught and, drawing himself up, he found her clutching Lavelle with both hands around his other wrist. Her feet were twisted in the root of a tree which the sea had washed out of the earth. It was this root which had saved all of them.
Emily could understand now how she came to feel like one who had been broken on a wheel. She could not imagine where she had found the strength to withstand the terrific forces which, according to the giant's description, had beset her. She believed she had acted unconsciously, but at least, she thought, she had proved herself not useless. She found comfort in this momentary reflection, nor did she suspect that a great, new power—a power like unto which there is no other—had dawned in her life.
"I catch him master," added Chang, "but you hol' flor him like a marther hol' him litty bit chile when him big bear kom-men in winter. Chang bring you here flor topside. You eye close. Him master eye close. Him head must flor stlike 'gainst boat: maybe lock hit him. Him boat all go way."