By Reef and Palm, page 41 by Louis Becke
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With a curious guttural voice Enderby asked--"How many eggs were left?"
"Thirty or so--perhaps forty."
"And you have eaten all but those?"--pointing with savage contempt to five of the round, white balls; "give me those for your wife."
"My dear man, Louise has too much Island blood in her not to be able to do better than I--or you--in a case like ours. And as you have kindly constituted yourself her providore, you had better go and look for a nest yourself."
"You dog!"--and the sharp-edged coral stone crashed into his brain.
* * * * *
When Enderby returned, he found Mrs Langton sitting up on the creeper-covered mound that over-looked the beach where he had left Langton.
"Come away from here," he said, "into the shade. I have found a few turtle-eggs."
They walked back a little and sat down. But for the wild riot in his brain, Enderby would have noted that every vestige of colour had left her face.
"You must be hungry," he thought he was saying to her, and he placed the white objects in her lap.
She turned them slowly over and over in her hands, and then dropped them with a shudder. Some were flecked with red.
"For God's sake," the man cried, "tell me what you know!"
"I saw it all," she answered.
"I swear to you, Mrs Lan----" (the name stuck in his throat) "I never meant it. As God is my witness, I swear it. If we ever escape from here I will give myself up to justice as a murderer."
The woman, with hands spread over her face, shook her head from side to side and sobbed. Then she spoke. "I thought I loved him, once. . . . Yet it was for me . . . and you saved my life over and over again in the boat. All sinners are forgiven we are told. . . . Why should not you be? . . . and it was for me you did it. And I won't let you give yourself up to justice or any one. I'll say he died in the boat." And then the laughter of hysterics.
* * * * *
When, some months later, the JOSEPHINE, whaler, of New