As obviously Mrs. Travers could not have paddled herself across, two men were taking her over; and for the steersman she had Jaffir.  Though he had assented to Jorgenson’s plan Jaffir was anxious to accompany the ring as near as possible to its destination.  Nothing but dire necessity had induced him to part with the talisman.  Crouching in the stern and flourishing his paddle from side to side he glared at the back of the canvas deck-chair which had been placed in the middle for Mrs. Travers.  Wrapped up in the darkness she reclined in it with her eyes closed, faintly aware of the ring hung low on her breast.  As the canoe was rather large it was moving very slowly.  The two men dipped their paddles without a splash:  and surrendering herself passively, in a temporary relaxation of all her limbs, to this adventure Mrs. Travers had no sense of motion at all.  She, too, like Jorgenson, was tired of thinking.  She abandoned herself to the silence of that night full of roused passions and deadly purposes.  She abandoned herself to an illusory feeling; to the impression that she was really resting.  For the first time in many days she could taste the relief of being alone.  The men with her were less than nothing.  She could not speak to them; she could not understand them; the canoe might have been moving by enchantment—­if it did move at all.  Like a half-conscious sleeper she was on the verge of saying to herself, “What a strange dream I am having.”

The low tones of Jaffir’s voice stole into it quietly telling the men to cease paddling, and the long canoe came to a rest slowly, no more than ten yards from the beach.  The party had been provided with a torch which was to be lighted before the canoe touched the shore, thus giving a character of openness to this desperate expedition.  “And if it draws fire on us,” Jaffir had commented to Jorgenson, “well, then, we shall see whose fate it is to die on this night.”

“Yes,” had muttered Jorgenson.  “We shall see.”

Jorgenson saw at last the small light of the torch against the blackness of the stockade.  He strained his hearing for a possible volley of musketry fire but no sound came to him over the broad surface of the lagoon.  Over there the man with the torch, the other paddler, and Jaffir himself impelling with a gentle motion of his paddle the canoe toward the shore, had the glistening eyeballs and the tense faces of silent excitement.  The ruddy glare smote Mrs. Travers’ closed eyelids but she didn’t open her eyes till she felt the canoe touch the strand.  The two men leaped instantly out of it.  Mrs. Travers rose, abruptly.  Nobody made a sound.  She stumbled out of the canoe on to the beach and almost before she had recovered her balance the torch was thrust into her hand.  The heat, the nearness of the blaze confused and blinded her till, instinctively, she raised the torch high above her head.  For a moment she stood still, holding aloft the fierce flame from which a few sparks were falling slowly.