Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (231 page)

Patterson
pulled
himself
together
and
kissed
her
hand,
a
long,
delicate
hand
all
dusky-tanned
with
the
sun.
A
huge
diamond
glared
from the
third
finger.

"Morning,
Inés,"
said
Judd
casually.
"Where's
the
Captain?"

"Micah?"
She
became
suddenly
indifferent.
"Waiting
for
his
breakfast,
I
suppose.
I
must
go
to
him.
Shall
we
walk
up
the
hill
together?"

And
so
they
went,
and
the
Doña
Inés
moved
lightly
between
them, all
bright
and
flaming
in
her
gaudy
clothes,
and
told
Patterson
that he
must
accustom
himself
to
this
idea
of
eternity.
After
the
first
hundred
years
these
things
mattered
little
enough.

"As
well
be
here,
laughing
and
walking
in
the
sunshine,
as
in
our graves.
Don't
you
think
so,
señor?
And
I,
who
am
talking
to
you,
have so
much
experience
of
these
things.
Why,
haven't
I
lived
here
with Micah
Thunder
for
near
on
a
hundred
and
forty
years?
And
it
might be
yesterday
that
he
sacked
Santa
Ana,
he
and
his
fleet,
and
took
me prisoner
when
I
was
on
my
knees
at
Mass,
and
swore
that
I
should be
his
woman.
And
so
I
was,
both
here
and
on
his
ship.
But
I
have almost
forgot
the
ship,
and
Santa
Ana,
too.
Now
there
is
only
the island,
and
yet
I
am
not
a
stricken
woman,
am
I,
nor
yet
a
day
older than
when
cast
up
on
these
shores?"

And
so
she
prattled,
her
dark
eyes
flashing
like
jewels,
until
she
and the
two
men
came
to
the
clearing
where
were
the
two
huts,
and there,
in
front
of
the
smaller
one,
sat
Heywood,
surly
as
ever,
eating.

"Good-by,
señor,"
said
Doña
Inés.
"We
will
meet
later,
when
I have
fed
my
Captain."

Patterson
sat
down
on
the
ground
and
said
nothing.

"Here's
orange-juice,"
said
Judd,
"and
custard-apples,
and
some corn-bread
I
baked
myself.
No
butter—we
don't
rise
to
that—but,
all the
same,
we'll
dine
on
oysters."

Patterson
ate
in
silence.
He
supposed
himself
to
be
hungry.
And he
thought
that
he
was
in
a
nightmare,
and
would
wake
soon
with the
steward
shaking
him,
and
find
himself
once
more
in
a
gay,
chintz-hung
cabin
of
the
Seagull,
with
bacon
and
eggs
waiting
in
the
dining-saloon.
But
he
did
not
wake.

"I'll
help
you
rig
up
a
tent
after
breakfast,"
said
Judd.
"I've
got some
sailcloth.
It'll
last
you
for
a
few
days,
and
then
you
can
build a
hut
for
yourself."

Heywood,
eating
ravenously,
said
nothing,
but
eyed
him
in
silence.

"I
wish,"
he
thought
desperately,
"they
wouldn't
stare
like
that."

And
suddenly
he
knew
of
what
their
fixed
eyes
reminded
him. They
were
like
dead
men
in
the
way
they
gazed.
Glassy
and
vacant, their
eyes
were
as
the
eyes
of
corpses.
Perhaps
their
fantastic
stories were
true,
and
he
had
in
reality
been
cast
for
all
eternity
upon
a
mirage island.