Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/162

 “What is it, Thandar?” she asked. “What do you see?”

“The yacht!” he whispered. “It is the Priscilla—my father’s. He is searching for me.”

“And you wish to go?”

For some time he did not speak—only stood there gazing at the distant yacht. And the young girl at his side remained quite motionless and silent, too, looking up at the man’s profile, watching the expression upon his face with a look of dumb misery upon her own.

Quickly through the man’s mind was running the gamut of his past. He recalled his careful and tender upbringing—the time, the money, the fond pride that had been expended upon his education. He thought of the result—the narrow-minded, weakling egoist; the pusillanimous coward that had been washed from the deck of a passing steamer upon the sandy beach of this savage, forgotten shore.

And yet it had been love, solicitous and tender, that had prompted his parents to their misguided efforts. He was their only son. They were doubtless grieving for him. They were no longer young, and in their declining years it appeared to him a pathetic thing that they should be robbed of the happiness which he might bring them by returning to the old life.