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Page 23
As yet he had not been observed; the young girl called to the child
and, suddenly rising, threw off her red cap and shawl and quietly
began to disrobe herself. A couple of coarse towels were at her
feet. Jarman instantly comprehended that she was going to bathe
with the child. She undoubtedly knew as well as he did that she
was safe in that solitude; that no one could intrude upon her
privacy from the bay shore, nor from the desolate inland trail to
the sea, without her knowledge. Of his own contiguity she had
evidently taken no thought, believing him safely housed in his
cabin beside the semaphore. She lifted her hands, and with a
sudden movement shook out her long hair and let it fall down her
back at the same moment that her unloosened blouse began to slip
from her shoulders. Richard Jarman turned quickly and walked
noiselessly and rapidly away, until the little hillock had shut out
the beach.
His retreat was as sudden, unreasoning, and unpremeditated as his
intrusion. It was not like himself, he knew, and yet it was as
perfectly instinctive and natural as if he had intruded upon a
sister. In the South Seas he had seen native girls diving beside
the vessels for coins, but they had provoked no such instinct as
that which possessed him now. More than that, he swept a quick,
wrathful glance along the horizon on either side, and then,
mounting a remote hillock which still hid him from the beach, he
sat there and kept watch and ward. From time to time the strong
sea-breeze brought him the sound of infantine screams and shouts of
girlish laughter from the unseen shore; he only looked the more
keenly and suspiciously for any wandering trespasser, and did not
turn his head. He lay there nearly half an hour, and when the
sounds had ceased, rose and made his way slowly back to the cabin.
He had not gone many yards before he heard the twitter of voices
and smothered laughter behind him. He turned; it was Cara and the
child,--a girl of six or seven. Cara's face was rosy,--possibly
from her bath, and possibly from some shame-faced consciousness.
He slackened his pace, and as they ranged beside him said, "Good-
morning!"
"Lord!" said Cara, stifling another laugh, "we didn't know you were
around; we thought you were always 'tending your telegraph, didn't
we, Lucy?" (to the child, who was convulsed with mirth and
sheepishness). "Why, we've been taking a wash in the sea." She
tried to gather up her long hair, which had been left to stray over
her shoulders and dry in the sunlight, and even made a slight
pretense of trying to conceal the wet towels they were carrying.
Jarman did not laugh. "If you had told me," he said gravely, "I
could have kept watch for you with my glass while you were there.
I could see further than you."
"Tould you see US?" asked the little girl, with hopeful vivacity.
"No!" said Jarman, with masterly evasion. "There are little
sandhills between this and the beach."
"Then how tould other people see us?" persisted the child.
Jarman could see that the older girl was evidently embarrassed, and
changed the subject. "I sometimes go out," he said, "when I can
see there are no vessels in sight, and I take ray glass with me. I
can always get back in time to make signals. I thought, in fact,"
he said, glancing at Cara's brightening face, "that I might get as
far as your house on the shore some day." To his surprise, her
embarrassment suddenly seemed to increase, although she had looked
relieved before, and she did not reply. After a moment she said
abruptly:--
"Did you ever see the sea-lions?"
"No," said Jarman.
"Not the big ones on Seal Rock, beyond the cliffs?" continued the
girl, in real astonishment.
"No," repeated Jarman. "I never walked in that direction." He
vaguely remembered that they were a curiosity which sometimes
attracted parties thither, and for that reason he had avoided the
spot.
"Why, I have sailed all around the rock in father's boat,"
continued Cara, with importance. "That's the best way to see 'em,
and folks from Frisco sometimes takes a sail out there just on
purpose,--it's too sandy to walk or drive there. But it's only a
step from here. Look here!" she said suddenly, and frankly opening
her fine eyes upon him. "I'm going to take Lucy there to-morrow,
and I'll show you." Jarman felt his cheeks flush quickly with a
pleasure that embarrassed him. "It won't take long," added Cara,
mistaking his momentary hesitation, "and you can leave your
telegraph alone. Nobody will be there, so no one will see you and
nobody know it."
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