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Updated: June 15, 2025
Both Clara and I felt that it would only raise needless comment to explain that Mr. and Mrs. Croyden had occupied separate encampments. Nor is it necessary to relate our safe and easy return to New York. Both Clara and I found Mr. and Mrs. Croyden delightful travelling companions, though perhaps we were not sorry when the moment came to say good-bye.
She said frankly that she believed she had learned to care for me during our correspondence, but that she thought we should meet in person, before coming to any definite understanding. Could I not arrange to visit Croyden in the summer? Until then we would better continue on our present footing.
It was at the opening of the fifth week of our life upon the island that a new and more surprising turn was given to our adventure. It arose out of a certain curiosity, harmless enough, on Edith Croyden's part. "Mr. Borus," she said one morning, "I should like so much to see the rest of our island. Can we?" "Alas, Miss Croyden," I said, "I fear that there is but little to see.
There is something, I am free to confess, about a woman in her bare feet which hits me where I live. With instinctive feminine taste the girl had twined a piece of seaweed in her hair. Seaweed, as a rule, gets me every time. But I checked myself. "Miss Croyden," I said, "there is nothing to forgive."
I was just considering what to remove next, when the girl opened her eyes. "Stop rubbing my feet," she said. "Miss Croyden," I said, "you mistake me." I rose, with a sense of pique which I did not trouble to conceal, and walked to the other end of the raft. I turned my back upon the girl and stood looking out upon the leaden waters of the Caribbean Sea. The ocean was now calm.
"Croyden," I said, raising the shovel again, "cut that out." "I'm sorry," he said. "It's all right. But you needn't go on. I see all the rest of your adventures plainly enough." "Well, I'm done with it all anyway," said Croyden gloomily. "You can do what you like. As for me, I've got a decent suit back there at our camp, and I've got it dried and pressed and I'm going to put it on."
"How lonely!" she said. I set myself to work to haul up and arrange our effects. With a few stones I made a rude table and seats. I took care to laugh and sing as much as possible while at my work. The close of the day found me still busy with my labours. "Miss Croyden," I said, "I must now arrange a place for you to sleep."
At length she opened her eyes and sat up. "I must have fainted," she said, with a little shiver. "I am cold. Oh, if we could only have a fire." "I will do my best to make one, Miss Croyden," I replied, speaking as gymnastically as I could. "I will see what I can do with two dry sticks." "With dry sticks?" queried the girl. "Can you light a fire with that? How wonderful you are!"
I seized the shovel, and with the roar of a wounded bull or as near as I could make it I rushed out from the rock, the shovel swung over my head. But the fight was all out of Croyden. "Don't strike," he said, "I'm all in. I couldn't stand a crack with that kind of thing." He sat down upon the sand, limp. Seen thus, he somehow seemed to be quite a small man, not a cave man at all.
"Miss Croyden," I said, "there is only one way. I must carry you." In another moment I had walked back to the raft and lifted her as tenderly and reverently as if she had been my sister indeed more so in my arms. Her weight seemed nothing. When I get a girl like that in my arms I simply don't feel it. Just for one moment as I clasped her thus in my arms, a fierce thrill ran through me.
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