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His voice changed, went low and thick. “I’m not asking you to go alone.”

Phil lay very still. Through half-closed lids she saw Clin’s dark eyes watching her, and was suddenly conscious that the blue swim suit left her rather exposed. She felt deceived by him—let down.

“What
are
you asking?” she enquired unevenly.

“You know well enough. We’re not conventional people, Phil, but I’ll marry you, if you like. We’ll get a boat to the Cape, and then on to Australia and the islands—kick around for as long as it takes to find a good spot to settle. We’ll make a go of it, Phil.”

“I’m afraid we won’t.” Her tones were steady again; she had made them so. “Maybe you consider the useful part of your life over, Clin, but mine hasn’t begun yet.”

“It’s no mean task to keep a man happy, and I guarantee you plenty of excitement. I’ve been in love a dozen times before, but not this way. I’ve never touched you, have I?”

“You knew it would have spoiled everything if you had.”

“Quite true.” He spoke reasonably, confidently. “I could see you weren’t to be rushed, so I waited. But I mean to take you with me, Phil. I’ll wear you down within the next week.”

“So you sail in a week?” she managed airily. “We’ll all turn out to wish you luck.”

His eyes narrowed down at her, and his mouth, which had never before drawn her attention, compressed in a faintly unpleasant smile.

“You shelter behind the other men here. You think that I won’t dare to kiss you against your will because of them. Typically a woman’s get-out, but a dirty one, Phil.”

“I don’t agree. Why should I tolerate distasteful kisses?”

“You haven’t found my friendship distasteful.”

“No. I’ve enjoyed it—till today. Let’s leave it like that, Clin.”

“Which means,” he said through closed teeth, “that emotionally I've made no inroads. Well, I suppose it’s my own fault for using the time so foolishly. I was stupid enough to believe it more important that you should trust me. It doesn’t matter any more.”

He twisted and pinned down her shoulders, bent and sought roughly for her evading mouth. Phil struggled. She brought up her knee hard into his stomach, wrenched -herself to her feet and ran.

Clin did not follow her. When, gasping and weak in the limbs, she looked back from the top of the hill, he was still lying on his side where she had left him.

She was not so much disgusted as sickened and disappointed by the episode. Later, when Manoela set out to retrieve the couple of garments Phil had left on the beach, she was back within a minute. The shorts and blouse, folded and weighted by a stone, hung over Phil’s front gate, and from between them fell a scrap of paper which read:

Forgive me, Phil. Don't blame a chap for trying his luck
.

She stood wondering. It was Clin’s writing, but hardly, she thought, Clin’s sentiment. She hadn’t forgotten the viciously tight teeth and the animal dilation of his nostrils as she fought to avoid his lips. He was offering a swift apology to prevent her from confiding in one of the men. He needn’t have worried. She had had pleasure from Clin’s companionship and wasn’t likely to cause unnecessary trouble for him before his departure.

During the following days she saw him only from her veranda when he passed on his way to and from the waterfront. He smiled at her, tipped his helmet and jauntily continued along the track. She asked Matt if a farewell drink party had been arranged, but the trader shook his head.

“Clin’s a deep one. Keeps saying he isn’t ready to leave, but his cabin trunk has been locked and labelled for days. No use saying goodbye yet.”

The week Clin had mentioned slipped by and another began. There were several freighters in the harbour, mainly the cacao fleet, a tanker and a couple of small coasters. Clin would have to make for the mainland and take his chance on a boat to the Cape.

She was designing one of her clay figures one evening, a woman with a negroid mouth and nose and a thick, weight-carrying neck curving into square shoulders, when there was a brief tattoo on the main door. While she was hesitating the knock came again and she stood up, smiling a little. Whoever it was had passed unchallenged by the police-boy. That meant Julian; he had come at this hour that first evening when she had met him at the door with a gun.

She went into the hall and shot back the bolt. The door opened and her smile became fixed and enquiring.

“Hello, Phil,” said Clin. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

He looked stiff and respectable in a grey lounge suit, and his manner appeared subdued.

“Do I have to stay here or will you let me in?” he asked.

Disarmed, Phil moved aside and indicated the hall seat. “So you really are leaving this time. Tomorrow?”

“At daybreak. I’m going aboard tonight.”

“Do Matt and the others know?”

He shook his head and let it rest against the wall. “They won’t care, except that I’ve done them out of a binge. It’s strange, I’ve never made friends anywhere.”

“Travelling too much, I expect. People come to recognize you as the flitting type and won’t bother to get to know you properly.”

“You did,” he said casually.

“No. I accepted you, that’s all.”

“Up to a point,” he commented. “You gave my pride a smack the other day—not to mention the knee in my middle. No one would have guessed I’d just paid you the compliment of proposing to you.”

She laughed and looked out through the open door. “You’ll come across someone more to your taste.”

“No hope of a last-minute switch-over?”

“Afraid not, Clin.”

He shrugged. “So be it. Got a drink to spare?” As she turned uncertainly towards the lounge door he added, “It’s all right, Phil. I won't shanghai you.”

She said, “What about inviting the men in to wish you
bon voyage?
”

“Matt’s soaking his hide at the waterfront and the other two hate my guts.”

She got out a bottle of whisky and a tumbler, and as he reached for them she was assailed by a hot gust of liquorsmelling breath.

“I’ll get you some water,” she murmured quickly.

“Don’t bother. I prefer it neat.” He raised his glass and his eyes burned at her over the rim. “Here’s to chastity,” he said, and swallowed.

She fought down a rising tide of panic. “You must go now, Clin.”

“No hurry, sweetheart. Let’s put out the light for an hour.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“What’s absurd about it? I’ve told you I love you.” He shifted closer. “Come on, Phil. Be matey.”

“You’re drunk, Clin!”

In a frightening flash she recalled Julian’s earliest warning: “Sure as death there’ll come a night when one of them will be cockeyed enough to forget himself.” She stepped back, but before she could twitch aside the curtain he had thrust down her hand.

Clin was very near, between Phil and the door. The automatic was in the writing-table drawer, to her left. As she edged towards it she tried to soften her lips into a smile.

“You’ll loathe yourself tomorrow, Clin . . .”

“Not so much as I’ve loathed you since that day on the beach,” he grated. “I promised myself this, you maddening little prude.”

Phil had contrived to put a yard between them. She whirled, snatched open the drawer, swung back and pointed the gun.

“I know how to use it, Clin!”

His teeth bared. “D’you think I can’t see that you’re half dead with terror? Give me that!”

She was prepared for him to duck as he struck at her hand; this time the automatic stayed tight in her grasp. But Clin had pushed her arm high and held it there, while his other hand gripped her neck. He was straining her back over the writing-table. Her head hit wood and she could see the lamp, a few inches above her forehead. His breath was heavy and foul upon her face. She went limp, his hold slackened, and she brought down the gun.

Phil heard the report and knew herself free of him a moment before the tearing agony started in her arm. She caught at the edge of the table and dragged herself upright. The lamp toppled. Clin was gone and she was alone with a gushing groove in her arm and the weight of his pressure at the side of her throat.

She stumbled outside to shout for Manoela, but only a croak came and, dazed with pain; she lurched to the gate and on to the track. She didn’t know that she turned right instead of left; nor did she feel the cool tug of wild banana leaves as she floundered through the bush. Right arm across her breast, the palm cupped over the long sticky wound in her left upper arm, her chin sunk to ease the dreadful rasp as she breathed, Phil staggered on in the cool, moist darkness.

She came to the clearing and attempted to run. Somehow she mounted the steps and reached the veranda.

A man leapt from his chair within the room and crashed wide the mesh door. She gave a dry, racking sob.

“Julian! Oh, Julian!”

WHILE he cleaned the wound and dressed it she lay white and still on the couch, scarcely breathing. But as he was washing the blood from her forearm and hands the drug he had made her gulp down with whisky began to wear off, and fiery waves of pain engulfed her. She trembled and sweated, a defenceless collection of nerves and agonies.

Julian held her and wiped her brow with a damp cloth. He spoke quietly, only his eyes revealing a cold and deadly violence.

“It’s the antiseptic that’s giving you gyp, but I had to use plenty to prevent infection. It’s a brute of a gash, but the worst should be over soon. Talk a bit, if you can.” He was pale at the nostrils as he measured his thumb over the purpling mark at her throat. “Who was it?”

“I ... I did it myself . . . fired the automatic. He was .. . drunk.”

“Who?”

“Clin. The gun went off and he . . . ran away.”

“I’ll deal with Clin Dakers tonight.”

“No ... let him go. He’s sailing at dawn.”

“By God he is! Maybe before.” He put a glass to her lips. “You’re to sleep now. I’ll find you a capsule and leave some boys on guard.”

He went out and came back wearing a jacket. As he bent to give her a clean handkerchief his pocket swung forward and she clutched it, feeling the hard shape it contained.

“No more shooting, Julian. Please!”

“I always carry it. Get some sleep.”

Outside he called the boys, instructed them in curt dialect, and slid into the car. As the trees thinned on either side of the road he noticed the orange glow between and above them, and from where the plantation ended the blaze was clearly visible. One of the houses on the cliff was afire.

Half-way along the bush track his beams picked out the gesticulating outline of a man, and he pulled up beside the coughing, choking figure of Roger Crawford.

“It’s Phil’s house,” he panted. “Practically gutted, and we can’t find her.”

“Get in,” ordered Julian. “She’s at my place.”

Roger slumped into the seat, made a strangled sound and dropped his face into his hands. Farther on they picked up Drew, and Julian drove past the flaming building, past Matt’s dark dwelling to the equally blank-looking house that belonged to Clin Dakers.

He told them what had happened. “So now we find the devil,” he said without emotion. “A quick glance over the house and then we’ll go down to the waterfront to search the vessel that’s getting ready to leave.”

Clin’s trunk still stood in his bare, musty living-room. His bed was stripped of everything save the disintegrating mattress. As they came out again Julian made a swift dive after a cotton-clad woman who was sidling, bent low, along the path towards the track. He yanked her to her feet.

“So it’s you, you I’ll—”

“Missus Pheel,” she whimpered. “She dead.”

Julian had flung her down again, but Roger stayed to say, Missus has been hurt, Manoela, by the white master who lives in here. You tell us if you see him.”

She wailed something and grovelled away.

Phil slept, unaware that at intervals the houseboy came in with the insect spray or to examine the lamp. He was there when she awoke, and the lamp was out. Pencils of grey light invaded the room through the Venetian blinds, and somewhere in the building a native was singing as he started his chores for the day.

She said, “Has your master come?”

“No, missus.”

“Oh. Pass my wrist-watch, will you?”

It was caked with blood and she bade him clean the face. A quarter to six. Julian had been gone nearly eight hours. “Have you heard nothing from your master?”

“Little master come two-three hours ago. Him go ’way again.”

Drew or Roger, she supposed.

“I’d like some coffee,” she said.

Waiting, Phil cautiously raised her left wrist, but the knife-twist up near her shoulder brought her hand back to its former position at her side. Her neck was stiff, her throat parched and hurting. She had never known such a concentration of pain.

The coffee was long in coming, and when at last the boy placed the tray on a small table and pushed it near to the wicker couch Phil could not budge to pour it out.

“All right, Sam,” came from the doorway. “Bring another cup and leave it for me.”

She had heard neither the car nor his footsteps. When Julian came near and pulled up a chair she saw grime on his face and clothes, and sweat in the armpits of his drill jacket.

“Did you find him?” she whispered.

He nodded. “Black or white coffee?”

“A dash of milk, please.” Her eyes pleaded. “You must be very tired, Julian, but ... I have to ask.”

“Sugar?” He dropped in a spoonful and stirred. Intent upon filling the second cup, he said abruptly, “Yes, we found him hiding below the cliff, about half an hour ago.”

“You’d searched all night?”

“Climbed and watched. He’d made friends with the skipper of the freighter, and though I’d forbidden the man to sail I didn’t trust him. I guessed Clin had decided to swim out before it was light. We shook some life into Matt Bryson and the four of us spread out from the harbour to the lagoon.”

He dragged the handkerchief from his top pocket and dried inside the open collar of his shirt.