As the realization of her growing sentiment toward the man awakened, it
imparted to her ways with him a sudden coyness and maidenly aloofness
which had been entirely wanting before. Until then their companionship,
in so far as the girl was concerned, had been rather that of one
youth toward another; but now that she found herself thrilling at his
slightest careless touch, she became aware of a paradoxical impulse to
avoid him.
For the first time in her life, too, she realized her nakedness, and
was ashamed. Possibly this was due to the fact that Waldo appeared so
solicitous in endeavoring to coerce his rags into the impossible feat
of entirely covering his body.
As they neared their journey's end Waldo became more and more perturbed.
During the last night horrible visions of Flatfoot and Korth haunted
his dreams. He saw the great, hairy beasts rushing upon him in all the
ferocity of their primeval savagery--tearing him limb from limb in
their bestial rage.
With a shriek he awoke.
To the girl's startled inquiry he replied that he had been but dreaming.
"Did you dream of Flatfoot and Korth?" she laughed. "Of the things that
you will do to them tomorrow?"
"Yes," replied Waldo; "I dreamed of Flatfoot and Korth." But the girl
did not see how he trembled and hid his head in the hollow of his arm.
The last day's march was the most agonizing experience of Waldo
Emerson's life. He was positive that he was going to his death, but to
him the horror of the thing lay more in the manner of his coming death
than in the thought of death itself. As a matter of fact, he had again
reached a point when he would have welcomed death.
The future held for him nothing but a life of discomfort and misery and
constant mental anguish, superinduced by the condition of awful fear
under which he must drag out his existence in this strange and terrible
land.
Waldo had not the slightest conception as to whether he was upon some
mainland or an unknown island. That the tidal wave had come upon them
somewhere in the South Pacific was all that he knew; but long since he
had given up hope that succor would reach him in time to prevent him
perishing miserably far from his home and his poor mother.
He could not dwell long upon this dismal theme, because it always
brought tears of self-pity to his eyes, and for some unaccountable
reason Waldo shrunk from the thought of exhibiting this unmanly
weakness before the girl.
All day long he racked his brain for some valid excuse whereby he might
persuade his companion to lead him elsewhere than to her village. A
thousand times better would be some secluded little garden such as that
which had harbored them for the ten days following their escape from
the cave men.
If they could but come upon such a place near the coast, where Waldo
could keep a constant watch for passing vessels, he would have been as
happy as he ever expected it would be possible for him in such a savage
land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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