She sat down beside him, and they ate the food she had brought, talking little, and each ever on the watch for any movement of the enemy. There was nothing. Nothing but the gulls flying in the blue, and the waves breaking on the coral and the wind moving the foliage of the distant trees.
The island might have been deserted but for their presence and those brown spots lying on the sand of the distant beach.
No fires were lit on the fishing beach that evening, nor did the wind from across the lagoon bring any sound of singing from the fishermen.
Floyd remained at the lookout post while Isbel, returning to the house, put everything in order and gave a last touch to the defenses and a last look around. Then she returned and took her place beside him.
The moon, stronger to-night, yellow and brilliant, hung in the apple-green dusk of the eastern sky. It looked exactly like the quarter of a crystallized orange; then, as the sky steadily and swiftly darkened, it lost its yellow tinge and became a sickle of frosted silver.
The light was powerful enough to sparkle up the whole lagoon and show the reef like a curving gray road set on either side with the lagoon water and the foam of the sea.
The fishing beach showed clearly, and the grove, even the tents could be made out as gray flecks against the darkness of the trees, but sign of life there was none.
"I would like it better if we could see more of them," said Floyd. "They are a lot too quiet."
"They will come to-night, I think," said Isbel. "They are hiding now and talking. Sru will lead them."
Floyd laughed. "He led them finely on the beach over there this afternoon," said he, "lying on his stomach all the time!"
"That is why I fear him," said Isbel. "He is very clever; the others are not clever, but they are good to fight. Sru is the head; they are the hands. Sru is a devil."
"You did not know what Sru was that time you left me and went back to them," said he.
"No," replied Isbel; "I thought he was good then. He said to me: 'Why not come back to your own people?' The words he said to me grew in my mind like seeds in the ground. I did not know you then. I thought you were the same as Schumer."
He could see her profile against the stars and the line of her delicately shaped head. She was sitting with her hands about her knees, in just the same position as on the day when, drawing near the beach, Schumer had stood to receive him, and Isbel had sat watching, seemingly indifferent, gazing at him with those eyes whose gaze held so much of the unknown.