I remembered then that if need arose she was to do unquestioningly anything I told her to do. "Dress at once and come out," I said. "Be quick!" "I've never been undressed," she answered. "I lay down in my clothes." "Then come, just now," I commanded. "Wait for nothing!" She was out of the room at once and by my side in the gloom. I laid a hand on her arm, giving its plump softness a reassuring pressure. "Don't be afraid!" I whispered. "Follow me on deck. We're going." "Going!" she said. "Leaving?" "Come along!" said I. I went before her up the stairway and out on the open deck. The night was particularly clear; the stars very bright; the patch of water between the yawl and the shore lay before us calm and dark; we could see the woods above the cove quite plainly, and at the edge of them a ribbon of white, the silver-sanded beach. And also, at the forward part of the vessel we were leaving I saw, or fancied I saw, shadowy forms--the Chinese were going to see us off. But one form was not shadowy, nor problematical. Chuh was there, awaiting us, his arms filled with rugs. Without a word he motioned us to follow, preceded us along the side of the yawl to the boat, went before us into it, helped us down, settled us, put the oars into my hands, climbed out again, and leaned his yellow face down at me. "You pull straight ahead," he murmured. "Good landing place straight before you: dry place on beach, too--morning come soon; you get away then through woods." "The boat?" I asked him. "You leave boat there--anywhere," he answered. "Boat not wanted again--we go, soon as high water over bar. Hope you get young missie safe home." "Bless you!" I said under my breath. Then, remembering that I had some money in my pocket--three or four loose sovereigns as luck would have it, I thrust a hand therein, pulled them out, forced them into the man's claw-like fingers. I heard him chuckle softly--then his head disappeared behind the rail of the yawl, and I shoved the boat off, and for the next few minutes bent to those oars as I had certainly never bent to any previous labour, mental or physical, in my life. And Miss Raven, seeing my earnestness, said nothing, but quietly took the tiller and steered us in a straight line for the spot which the Chinaman had indicated. Neither of us--strange as it may seem--spoke one single word until, at the end of half an hour's steady pull, the boat's nose ran on to the shingly beach, beneath a fringe of dwarf oak that came right down to the edge of the shore. I sprang out, with a feeling of thankfulness that it would be hard to describe--and for a good reason found my tongue once more. "Great Scott!" I exclaimed. "I've left my boots in that cabin!" Despite the strange situation in which we were still placed, Miss Raven's sense of humour asserted itself; she laughed. "Your boots!" she said. "Whatever will you do? These stones!--and the long walk home?"