“Life,” she told herself, “all human life is so precious that it is the duty of all to protect those who are in danger.
“Probably nothing very terrible,” she assured herself. “Nothing to be afraid of. We—”
She broke her thoughts square off to lean forward and listen with all her ears. Had she caught some sound from without, the snapping of a twig perhaps?
Not satisfied with this, she opened the flaps of the tent and peered into the moonlight.
The moon was high. The silence was uncanny. Every object, trees, bushes, rocks stood out like pictures in fairyland. Shadows were deep wells of darkness.
Some ten feet from their tent was a large flat rock, their “table.” This stood full in the moonlight. That they had left nothing on this “table” she knew right well. She had washed it clean with a canvas bucket full of water from a spring. And yet—
She rubbed her eyes to look again. No, she was not mistaken. Two objects rested on that rock, one white as snow, the other dark and gleaming.
Creeping from the warm blankets, she stepped on the cold, damp floor of night. “Oo!” she shuddered. Next instant her hands closed on the mysterious objects.
“How—how strange!” She shuddered again, but not from the cold, then beat a hasty retreat.
Inside the tent, she turned the objects over in her hands. One was a large roll of bandages, the other a bottle of liniment.
“Who—” she whispered, “who can that have been?”
The answer came to her instantly. “The one who lowered the rope into the copper mine. And, perhaps, the one who plays the violin so gloriously. And who is he?” Here was a question she could not answer.
“‘Take, eat,’” she whispered the words of a half forgotten poem.
“Take, eat, he said, and be content. These fishes in your stead were sent By him who sent the tangled ram To spare the child of Abraham!”
At that she rubbed the liniment over her swollen ankle vigorously, bound it tightly, then crept beneath the blankets once more.
Though the bandage relieved her somewhat, she was still conscious of pain. Our waking thoughts as well as our dreams are often inspired by physical sensations. Pain awakens within us a longing for some spot where we have known perfect peace. To Florence, at the moment, this meant the deck of the unfortunate _Pilgrim_. There, with the waves lapping the old ship’s sides, the gentle breezes whispering and the gulls soaring high, she had found peace.