then as we swung shoreward I
turned to look at the Englishman. All night I had heard no sound from
him, nor glanced his way. My thoughts of him had been bitter, for he
was a sore weight on my hands. Yet this I knew was unjust, and I was
shamed for my own bad temper. My surliness must have pricked him, as
he sat silent through the long hours of dark and cold; and now that the
approaching sun was putting me in a better humor, I could see that I
had been hard, and I determined to speak to him fairly.

And so I turned, puckering my lips to a smile that did not come easily,
for my face was stiff and my spirit sore. But I might have spared my
pains. The prisoner was asleep. He lay in a chrysalis of red blanket,
his head tipped back on a bundle of sailcloth, his face to the stars.
He was submerged in the deep slumber where the soul deserts the body
and travels unknown ways. Judged by his look of lax muscles and
surrender, he had lain that way for hours,--the hours when I had been
punishing him with my averted glance.

I woke him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You slept well," I accused.

He shivered under my hand and opened his eyes. It took him an instant
to recognize me, but when he did he smiled with relief. I could not
but see that there was something pleasant in his smile. I saw, too,
that sleep had wiped the lines from his face, and given him a touch of
color.

"Did I sleep? Did I really sleep?" he marveled. "Monsieur, you are
very good to me."

But I was in no holiday humor, so only shrugged, and told him to unload
the bales. He smiled again, nodding, and jumped to the shore with
buoyancy that was an affront to our numbed muscles. But once at work
he was as useless as a sailor in a hayfield. He could lift nothing,
and he was hopelessly under foot. I bade him stand aside, and I prayed
for patience. After all he was young, and had been through great
hardship. I would spare him what I could for a time.

It is depressing to work in a cold dawn on an empty stomach. Our
landing had been made at the mouth of a rivulet, and we followed it
till we found a place, some quarter mile inland, that was open enough
for a camp. Here bale by bale we brought the cargo, piling it under
trees and covering it with sailcloth. The canoes we put bottom up in
the open, that the sun might dry them. I left Pierre hidden at the
shore to watch the horizon for our pursuers, and the rest of us
proceeded to breakfast.