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island.
For about an hour he toiled over the lumps of stone, picking a
way, placing his advancing foot firmly before committing to the hop
MOTOO EETEE 263
to the next rock. The sun had ruddled the thin layers of clouds, then
stealthily risen through them. His hands and face felt the warmth of
its growing rays.
On the sand between some rocks he discovered a trickle of water
weaving its way to the surf. It was reversed and overridden by the
thin edge of each wave as it rolled in. He followed the water up into
the trees until he found a place where the piddling stream fell from a
mat of twigs and leaves. His swollen and painful lips denied him the
pleasure of sucking up the sweet water in deep gulps, thus he had to
crouch low and thrust his jaw out to catch it in his mouth.
Despite all his care, the jarring movements across the stones had
kept his wounds aching. He might be able to go farther but didn t
wish to. Tobit and the mate could not have the slightest idea where
to look for him if they suspected he had not got away from the island.
Even if they had heard the musket reports in the night, they could
not have guessed why. There was no urgent reason for him to totter
along in his condition. He felt safe enough and it was time for rest
and sleep. He went back to the shore and between two rocks found
a wide hollow already warmed by the sun. The space was filled with
dry, loose cinders. Slowly he kneeled and turned around to lie on his
back. A greater measure of warmth penetrated his clothing and reached
his skin now that he was in the quieter air between the rocks. Two
fingers of his right hand touched the caked blood in his moustache
and beard.
I am quite safe, he reassured himself, and no one can see me as I
lie here. I can sleep for hours. Damn him! Blast him! he cursed in his
mind. He let out two deep sighs and in less than a minute was asleep.
IT NEEDED a marked effort by Thomas not to waken. He became
aware of his chest rising and falling in slow, deep breathing while sus-
pended between consciousness and a thick opiate sleep. Bird calls,
joyous and querulous, filled the darkness in his head, yet he desired
nothing more than to sink back into the soft nothingness. The clamant
264 MOTOO EETEE
chirping from the trees and the whispering of the low surf continually
nudged him upward. Blurred light slipped through his lax eyelids. He
opened them fully and found his body adhered to the side of the planet;
he was looking out into the sky. A few clouds were fixed there, and a
gull flew across his view with its underside facing him. The directions
slowly rotated back to their proper places. Up was no longer at the top
of his head, but straight before his face.
Where am I? he thought.
Then he remembered lying down between the boulders to rest. He
remained there for a few minutes more, not wholly awake and not
wanting to exert his tired limbs. Then he cautiously raised up to sit
and peek over the rocks to each end of the shoreline. There were no
figures of men carrying clubs to be seen: no searchers, stepping from
stone to stone as he had done. To the west, the sun was within half
an hour of dropping behind the highest peak. The greater portion of
the day had passed while he had slept betwixt the stones. The sun
had dried the legs of his trousers, wetted in the long march on the
beaches.
That was good, he noted. Nighttime will not be so comfortable and
might even become a misery if he did not discover some place to shel-
ter. Clouds were piling up and darkening in the south. A night spent
shivering in the wind and rain was a wretched prospect. The swim to
and from the brig and the night march had left him tired despite his
long sleep. Before darkness came, he must find his crevice or cave that
would at least be dry if nothing else.
The lad smoothed the surface he had lain upon with his hand,
then deftly cast handfuls of the cinders about to disguise those marks.
Then he stood up and strode from rock to rock to the south, always
taking care not to step down and leave a footprint on the sand and
cinders between them. At several places, where large rocks were vis-
ible between the boles of the trees on the slope, he made forays up
to them, but failing to find a hideaway, returned to the shore.
In the middle distance, a short headland, really a spur of guano-
whitened boulders against which the swells rounding the island broke
MOTOO EETEE 265
into froth, ran out into the sea. In an hour he had scattered its roost-
ing gulls and shags and crossed through its chaos of stones, some the
size of a cottage. There was calmer water in the lee and a remnant of
beach, but a canoe would have to be hidden in the bushes whilst a-
building and launched between and over the tumbled boulders.
Thomas went on searching the coast beyond. To his right, shadows
gradually filled in under the trees as the sun dropped from sight. It
became more difficult to see the trunks imbedded in the darkness.
Finding an opening, a cave, another overhang that would be dry in a
downpour, even a cramped one, became more urgent. The southern
sky was filling with more clouds, creating a minatory blackness at the
horizon, and flurries of wind tossed the limbs of trees and flapped the
hood of his jacket. He saw no promising place ahead on the shore and
climbed higher, pacing from the stones into the forest. It was a wan-
dering route around trees and ferns from one boulder to the next. In
the dimming light, he spied a group of tabular stones to his right and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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