The Cradle of the Deep; An Account of the Adventures of Eleanor Channing and John Starbuck (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 Excerpt: ... into the sea and turned homeward. In the darkness when he arrived, there was no sign of Miss Channing. He went to her hut and found the screen barred in place. He spoke softly to her but received no reply, though he heard her start at the sound of his voice. Going down to the sea, he stripped and plunged into the low surf, cleansing himself of the marks of battle, and returning, bound up his torn shoulder as well as he could with the pieces of his shirt. The latter was a great loss to him as it was his only body garment, and he wondered what he should do to cover his nakedness, for Aubert's shirt, also, was so torn as to be unwearable. The girl, too distressed to eat, had crept to the privacy of her hut, supperless. Too distraught to cook himself anything or even to scrape a raw cocoanut, Starbuck sought his own couch of grass, but not to sleep. He lay a long time thinking of the deed he had done. It was no murder, he reasoned, but a fair fight and the best man had won. He had stood as the protector of a defenceless woman. He had killed her enemy and burned his body but his hands were clean of crime. Though his act had been done in madness after the outrage he had seen, yet he was conscious that it had to be, for no punishment short of death was severe enough to maintain its effect. The man he likened to the captive tiger, docile until it tastes fresh blood, and after that never safe. Even civilized law would exonerate him, he thought, and here, under the palms and the sky there was no law but the law of Nature and of Nature's God, and that great precept, he felt, would hold him blameless should he, in the days, perhaps months to come, keep himself blameless. Protector he had chosen to make himself; protector he must remain. CHAPTER X THE CLEAN AIR OF MORN...