Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/383

Rh For company she had only the skull at her feet. She almost screamed as she glanced at the eyeless sockets, but courageously she stifled the cry and edged away from it, as best her body could, towards that irregular circle of blue. She must keep her eyes on that.

Why didn't they come! Where was Ben! Would the old man return after all, or was that only a lie. Almost she hoped that he wouldn't, that she could roll over the brink into the white foam. There would be rest there for a child of the sea.

But youth ran strongly in the slender body, so she waited and prayed, and prayed and waited, the long morning through.

Sometimes for relief, on that circle of sky as on a heavenly screen she tried to picture other places and things, to visualize old memories,—the trees, the orchards, and flowers, of her old home; the cheerful hustle of Preble Square; the old neighbours; the spick and span lighthouse, eternally guarding the deep; and Ben, telling the old, old story under the moon.

And then, in her fancies she saw the face of the stranger, the eyes, now with that quizzical expression as he read her through and through, now with the brave, pathetic look that went straight to her heart. Again she wondered. If his home had been in Salthaven, instead of on some strange shore—just where it was he had never told her—perhaps everywhere—but if it had been—why then—but, no, that could never be. Honest, blue-eyed Ben was hers, her boy. But why didn't he come!