Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/147

 told them that as she had saved them by overhearing Rantan’s plans, she would save them now, that they had nothing to do but wait and watch and prepare their minds for friendship with her people when she had finished what she intended to do.

Then she rose up.

As she stood with the moonlight full on her, a voice broke the silence of the night. It came from the saloon hatchway, a voice sudden, chattering, complaining and ceasing all at once as if cut off by a closed door. They knew what it was, the voice of a man talking in his sleep. Carlin on his back and seized by nightmare had cried out, half awakened, turned and fallen asleep again.

The group seated on the deck, after a momentary movement, resumed their positions. There is something so distinctive in the voice of a sleep-talker that the sound, after the first momentary flutter caused by it, brought assurance. Then, prepared at any moment to make a dash for the boat, they sat, the palms of their hands flat on the deck and their eyes following Le Moan, now gliding towards the hatch, the spear head in her left hand, her right hand touching the port rail as she went.

At the hatch she paused to listen. She could hear the reef, and on its sonorous murmur like a tiny silver thread of sound the trickle of the tide on the planking of the schooner, and from the dark pit of the stairway leading to the saloon another sound, the breathing of men asleep.