Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/279



did not go McKinnon's way as easily as he had expected, or had so bravely pretended to expect. The first gray tinge of morning, deepening slowly to pearl, showed along the eastern sky-line before he had completed his task.

He sat back with a sigh of relief; he sat back like a god who had wearied of creation, looking on his work and seeing that it was good. The gray and pearl along the sky-line had by this time turned to pale rose, and slender pencils of light were showing through the chinks in his cabin shutter.

Alicia Boynton was still asleep on his narrow berth. So narrow was her resting-place, and so quiet her breathing, that it seemed to him as though she were lying in a coffin. She had dropped off into that sleep of utter weariness against her will. She had resolved to be with him and near him every moment of his