“None whatever!” came back the confident, almost eager reply.  “Not the slightest doubt in the world, Mademoiselle.  The islands are very near and we can’t help seeing one of them at daybreak.”

“Daybreak?” she said.  “I wish it were here now.”

Swish! swish! went the sea with more menacing sound.  For the moment Francois steered wildly, and the boat careened; he brought her up sharply.  The girl spoke no more.  Perhaps the motion of the little craft gradually became more soothing as she accustomed herself to it, for, before long, her head drooped.  It was dry in the bow; a blanket protected her from the wind, and, weary with the events of the last few days, she seemed to rest as securely on this wave-rocked couch as a child in its cradle.  The youth, uncertain whether she slept or not, forbore to disturb her.  Hours went by.

As the night wore on a few stars came out in a discouraged kind of way.  Heretofore he had been steering by the wind; now, that scanty peripatetic band, adrift on celestial highways, assisted him in keeping his course.  When one sleepy-eyed planet went in, another, not far away (from the human scope of survey) came out, and Francois, with the perspicacity of a follower of the sea, seemed to have learned how to gage direction by a visual game of hide-and-seek with the pin-points of infinitude.  Between watching the stars, the sea and the sail, he found absorbing occupation for mind and muscle.  Sometimes, in the water’s depressions, a lull would catch them, then when the wind boomed again over the tops of the crests, slapping fiercely the canvas, a brief period of hazard had to be met.  The boat, like a delicate live creature, needed a fine as well as a firm hand.

His faculties thus concentrated, Francois had remained oblivious to the dark form in the center of the boat, although long ago Sonia Turgeinov had first moved and looked up.  If she made any sound, he whose glance passed steadily over her had not heard it.  She raised herself slightly; sat a long time motionless, an arm thrown over a seat, her eyes alternating in direction, from the seas near the downward gunwale, to the almost indistinguishable figure of him in the stern, the while her fingers played with a scarf—­the one that had been wound around her head.  Once she leaned back, her cheek against the sharp thwart, her gaze heavenward.  She remained thus a long while, with body motionless, though her fingers continued to toy with the bit of heavy silk, as if keeping pace with some mercurial rush of thoughts.

A wastrel, she had been in many strange places, but never before had she found herself in a situation so extraordinary.  To her startled outlook, the boat might well have seemed a chip tossed on the mad foam of chaos.  This figure, almost indistinguishable, yet so steadfastly present at the stern of the little craft, appeared grim and ghostlike.  But that he was no ghost—­His grip had been real; certainly that.  He had been, too, perforce, a master of action.  She leaned her head on her elbow.  Strangely, she felt no resentment.