Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/205

 the day before, was rigged again, and, drawing a deck chair aft, I settled myself down to read beneath its shade. A few minutes later Alie and her companion joined me. I brought them seats, and. then, for the first time, I saw the Beautiful White Devil—for I must sometimes call her by her picturesque Chinese cognomen—engaged in needlework. Why I should have found anything extraordinary in such a circumstance I cannot say. Possibly it may have been because I had never imagined that there could be sufficient leisure in her life for such a homely occupation. At any rate, I know that to watch her bent head, with its glorious wealth of hair; to see those beautiful white fingers, unadorned by jewellry of any sort, twisting and twining among her silks, and to make out one little foot peeping beneath her snow-white dress, sent a thrill through me that made me tingle from top to toe.

Suddenly one of the hands engaged upon some work in the fore-rigging uttered a cry in the native. Alie and her companion sprang to their feet; and, though I did not understand what had happened I followed their example. We ran to the starboard bulwark, but nothing was to be seen there. Not being able to make it out, I asked what had occasioned the alarm.

"One of the hands reports a boat away to starboard," said Alie.

She turned to one of the younger officers, who was standing near, and ordered him aloft to take the boat’s bearing. As soon as this was discovered the yacht we put over on a tack that would bring us close up with it, and after that there was nothing for it but to wait patiently for the result.