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Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/56

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V.

THEN he got his head out of the splashing water and one hand upon the side of the canoe, which was not wholly submerged. It gave him a slight support, enough to sustain him when he paddled with his other hand. The three triangles were not to be seen; but he had no need to fear them, nor indeed, to fear anything; for, on such a day, there are more keen eyes along that coast than landsmen at sea suspect. The waters there are like the Sahara, where Arabs and camels appear miraculously from the vacant expanses of sand. Both sea and sand, where the stranger sees nought else, are incredibly peopled.

A beating in Nelson's ears grew louder and more definite; it was the hard voice of a one-cylinder engine in a lobster fisherman's dory—a dory of the colour of the sea, a dory much the colour of its owner. "I see you when you come out the habbuh," he explained, as he helped Nelson to climb aboard. "'My godfrey mighty!' I says. 'Them summuh