justice for women in all this world. And if I am not there, you can know that the red tiger has eaten through to my vitals until I cannot get there—but you needn’t worry, because I shall be there. God wouldn’t give me this shining chance and then snatch it away from me.”
“Will you sit here, right in this spot, for a few minutes more?” asked the girl.
“I’ll sit here all night if you tell me to,” said Jamie, calmly, and it was not so calmly either because his heart was tearing until he was afraid it would fall out of the opening above it, and his blood was racing as blood had never raced in his veins. The girl in his arms might be cold and clammy and salt pasted, but he was neither cold nor clammy. He got one more tight hug and one more kiss—which happened to land squarely on the tip of his nose—not the location in which he wanted it in the least—and then she was gone and he heard swift feet going down the back of the rock and his trained ears could hear the first few footfalls across the dark beach.
He sat there and waited and looked down into the boiling surf and out over the battling sea, and by and by, he calmed himself so that he could think straightly and evenly, and then he said: “Such quick action as this seems to indicate that my time is short, and if there is a big thing that I have a chance of doing in this world, I’ve got to do it and do it quickly. So to-morrow afternoon at three o’clock, I’ll start on what appeals to me as the shining part of my Great Adventure.”
