Slowly and silently I dragged myself to the top of the sea chest. A strange fury had brought me strength. I peered down upon the girl.

She had one arm about the cook’s neck. Her long hair swept his face. I could see by the light of the moon that his horrible paw rested upon her shoulder. I would have given this world for strength enough to clutch her by the throat.

“Wait one more day for me, beloved!” I heard her whisper. Then she stole around to the other side of the chest.

I was waiting for her. Resisting an impulse to drag her with me into that running sea—an impulse for which rage and hate would have given me strength—I hissed:

“Wanton! I saw you kiss that Dutch fiend. I heard every word you spoke to him!”

The little blood left in me rushed to my brain and I fell beside the chest. She crawled to where I lay and put an arm about me.

I bit her.

“Leave me!” I managed to groan faintly. “Leave me!”

I could just make out the dawn at the other extremity of the horizon. I resolved that this day would bring my death.

“I had to do it,” I heard her whisper, as she placed her lips to my ear. “That Dutchman would have killed one of you a week ago for food, but I made love to him to save our lives. I took his knife away while he had still strength left to use it and I threw it into the sea.”

“You lie!” I managed to hiss out. “Griggs wanted to die that we might eat him.”

“Yes, and I won him over to life with my kisses.”

“Vile woman!”

I wanted to roar the words, but my voice scarcely attained the volume of a whisper. She had placed my head in her lap and I lay looking up helplessly into her face. Fury filled me and I tried to call for help.

“Jinks!” I moaned. “Jinks!”

“Jinks will do nothing for you,” she whispered. “I have bought him too with my kisses. I have bribed every man on this raft to wait by telling him he alone has my love.”

She relaxed her hold of my neck and leaned against the chest like a woman in a faint. I watched her closed eyes with the helpless fury of a starving man.

“Had I the strength,” I muttered, “I would throw you into these waters. You have been the ruin of us all.”

“I have saved you,” she whispered. “Look!”

I followed her pointing finger with my eye, and upon the waters, lit up now by the dawn, I saw a sail.