Emily stood beside him holding down the edges of the chart while he pricked off the Daphne's position and ran a line to the southeastward. It ended at Ocean Island. He ran a second to Midway; a third to Honolulu. The woman watched his long fine fingers—wondrously fine for the rough, hard things of which she knew them to be capable—handling pencil and ruler and dividers with a fascinating deftness and certainty. He seemed oblivious of everything else. An eager stimulation seemed to be driving him. The mystery of the student was about him. A feeling of woful incompetence possessed her. She realized how narrow and little her life had always been until now; how little she actually knew of all the things there were to be known. Her heart stirred of a sudden with a marvelous thrill at the thought of what a woman's triumph must be to suffer the giving of such a man as this to the world. Her breath paused tremulously. What Shanghai Elsie had said to her in the boat flashed into her mind: "You were made for the mother of men—strong men—like him."
The navigator, glancing up from his work, beheld an expression in her beautiful face which was beyond his understanding. Her glance dropped as it met his and a glow suffused her cheeks and thin, delicate ears that the dawn might have envied. A second later her eyes lifted to his again and in their expression and her smile he read elation. In his blindness he believed that she had been able to follow his work and that it was the prospect of an early deliverance which enlightened her countenance.
"There you are!" he exclaimed in a note of lively and natural pleasure. "Look! Only five hundred miles to the southeast——See that speck? That's Ocean Island. If we can't fetch that we'll try for Midway. A cable station's there. If we can't make any of these islands we'll keep right on to Honolulu. All the while we'll be lying along in the steamship track. Isn't it wonderful, eh?"
"Too wonderful to be true, Paul."
The answer came in a whisper. Tears glinted in her eyes. She was glad for his sake; glad that the stress which was upon him was so near an end. His escape, of course, meant hers and——Intuitively she sensed that he was very far away from her; that he was slipping further and further away and she started to put out a hand to touch him; to hold him. Her arm dropped as she raised it. This was not the man who had held her in his arms that morning. She heard his words dimly.
"If we can work to the south'ard and the eastward, by to-morrow noon we may begin to keep our eyes open for ships. With any kind of fair weather and a breeze from the westward land should be rising over the bows in three or four days. Think of it! Another twelve hours and you may be going over the Daphne's side into a homeward bounder!"
Emily's eyes overflowed. He winced at the tears.
"Why——You mustn't be crying now. You must laugh! Sing! The chief mate of the bark Daphne would better be thinking of her shore-going togs! This is what we'll be singing in a very short time:
"I thought I heard the captain say,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her;
You may go ashore and touch your pay,
It's time for us to leave her.
"We'll sing. Oh, may we never be,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her;
On a hungry ship the like of she,
It's time for us to leave her."