Page:Mosquitos (Faulkner).pdf/207

 face, gazing at it. On it was a thinly spreading crimson stain that grew as she watched it, and Jenny wept again with utter and hopeless misery.

“Oh, you’ve cut your poor hand! Dawson,” Mrs. Wiseman said, “you are the most consummate idiot unleashed. You take us right back to that yacht. Don’t try to row back: we'll never get there. Can’t you pull us back with the rope?”

They could, and Mrs. Wiseman helped Jenny into the bows and the men took their places again. Mr. Talliaferro flitted about in the water with his despairing face. “Jump in,” Fairchild told him. “We ain’t going to maroon you.”

They pulled the tender back to the yacht with chastened expedition. Mrs. Maurier met them at the rail, shrieking with alarm and astonishment. Pete was beside her. The sailors had decreetly vanished.

“What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Maurier chanted, mooning her round alarmed face above them. They brought the tender alongside and held it steady while Mrs. Wiseman helped Jenny across the thwarts and to the rail. Mr. Talliaferro flitted about in a harried distraction, but Jenny shrank from him. “You scared me so bad,” she repeated.

Pete leaned over the rail, reaching his hands while Mr. Talliaferro flitted about his victim. The tender rocked, scraping against the hull of the yacht. Pete caught Jenny’s hands.

“Hold the boat still, you old fool,” he told Mr. Talliaferro fiercely.

His legs were completely numb beneath her weight, but he would not move. He swished the broken branch about her, and at intervals he whipped it across his own back. Her face wasn’t so flushed, and he laid his hand again above her heart. At his touch she opened her eyes.

“Hello, David. I dreamed about water Where’ve