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Updated: May 23, 2025
He drew her closer, tightening his arms about her slender body, and a little cry came from her a cry that was a broken thing, a sob without tears. "Marette!" It was all he said. It was all he could say in that moment when his heart was beating like a drum against her breast.
He knew that it was a lamp in one of Kedsty's windows and that Marette was guiding herself by that light when she started down the slope with her hand still in his. That she had made no effort to withdraw it made him unconscious of the almost drowning discomfort of the fresh deluge of rain that beat their faces.
In pitch blackness they struck such a pool, and in spite of the handicap of his packs and rifle Kent stopped suddenly, and picked Marette up in his arms, and carried her until they reached high ground. He did not ask permission. And Marette, for a minute or two, lay crumpled up close in his arms, and for a thrilling instant his face touched her rain-wet cheek.
He drew out his watch. It was two o'clock. He held it down so that she could look at the dial. "If the storm keeps up, we have three hours before dawn," he said. "How soon can you be ready, Marette?" He was fighting to make his voice quiet and unexcited. It was a terrific struggle. And Marette was not blind to it.
But her face was as white as he had seen it down in Kedsty's room. Some of the horror and shock had gone out of it. In it was another look as her eyes glowed upon Kent. It was a look of incredulity, of disbelief, a thing slowly fading away under the miracle of an amazing revelation. The truth thrust itself upon him. Marette had not expected that he would come to her like this.
And it was tied close up against the shore. Marette told him this as they felt their way through brush and reeds. Then he stumbled against something taut and knee-high, and he found it was the tie-rope. Leaving Marette with her back to the anchor tree, he went aboard.
But it was the Watcher who stood out like a mighty god among them all, and when they came to the elbow in the plain, Marette drew Kent down beside her on a great flat rock and laughed softly as she held his hand tightly in her lap. "Always, from a little child, I have sat and played on this rock, with the Watcher looking, like that," she said in a low voice. "I have grown to love him, Jeems.
Even Kent's intimation that he was playing a game, and his direct accusation that he was keeping Marette Radisson in hiding at his bungalow, seemed to have no disturbing effect on him. For a space he looked at Kent, as if measuring the poise of the other's mind. When he spoke, it was in a voice so quiet and calm that Kent stared at him in amazement. "I don't blame you, Kent," he said.
Whatever the motive of the assault might be, and no matter who had committed it, Mooie had most certainly seen the Inspector of Police accompany Marette Radisson to the scow. And the question which Kent found it impossible to answer was, had Marette Radisson really gone down the river on that scow? It was almost with a feeling of disappointment that he told himself it was possible she had not.
"You believe that, Jeems?" "Yes, just as you believe that I did not kill John Barkley. But the world is against us. It is against us both now. And we've got to hunt that hidden valley of yours together. Understand, Marette? And I'm rather glad." He turned toward the door. "Will you be ready in ten minutes?" he asked. She nodded. "Yes, in ten minutes."
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