“All right.” She shucked her wet dress and hung it up to dry, while she lay down on her stomach on the soft dry sand to peer through the bushes at the ship. She made an alluring picture thus, her pink chemise dripping from their submersion, fitting her tighter than a glove. Clanton admired the view for a moment, and then departed through the trees, striding lightly and softly for so big a man.
Raquel lay there, watching the men piling into boats, with hawsers, where presently they were employed in yanking the schooner loose, stern-first, by main strength and profanity. But it was slow work. The sun rose, and Raquel got impatient. She was hungry and very, very thirsty.
She donned her dress, now dry, and started out to look for Clanton. The trees were denser than she had thought, and she soon lost sight of the beach. Presently she had to climb over a big log, and when she leaped down on the other side, a bramble bush caught up her skirt, twisting it high about her ivory thighs. She twisted about in vain, unable to reach the clinging branch or to free her skirt.
As she squirmed and swore, a light step sounded behind her, and without looking around she commanded, “Bill, untangle me!”
Obligingly a firm masculine hand grasped her skirt and freed it from the branch, by the simple process of raising it several inches. But her rescuer did not then lower the garment; indeed Raquel felt him pull it up even higher—much higher!
“Quit clowning,” she requested, turning her head—and then she opened her lovely mouth to its widest extent and emitted a yell that startled the birds in the trees. The man who was holding her skirt in such an indelicate position was not Clanton. He was a big Kanaka in breech-clout. Raquel made a convulsive effort to escape, but a big brown arm encircled her supple waist. In an instant the peaceful glade was a hurricane-center, punctuated by lusty shrieks that a big hand clapped over red-lipped mouth could not altogether stifle.
Clanton heard those screams as he glided like a big bronzed tiger toward the beach. They acted on him like a jolt of electricity. The next instant he was in full career through the jungle, leaving behind him a sizzling wake of profanity. Crashing through the bushes, he burst full onto a scene, striking in its primitive simplicity.
Raquel was defending her virtue as vigorously as civilized nations defend mythical possessions. Her dress had been torn half off and her white body and limbs contrasted vividly with the brown skin of her captor. He wasn’t all brown, though; he was red in spots, for she had bitten him freely. So much so that irritation entered into his ardor, and, momentarily abandoning his efforts to subdue her by more pleasant means, he drew back an enormous fist for a clout calculated to waft her into dreamland.
It was at this moment that Clanton arrived on the scene and his bare foot, describing a terrific arc, caught the Kanaka under his haunches and somersaulted him clear over his captive, who scurried to her protector on her all-fours.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay on the beach?” Wham! In his irritation Clanton emphasized his reproof with a resounding, open-handed slap where he could reach her easiest. Raquel’s shriek was drowned in a vengeful roar. The Kanaka had regained his feet and was bounding toward them, swinging a knotty-headed war club he had leaned against a tree when he stole up on Raquel.
He lunged with a yell and a swing that would have spattered Clanton’s brains all over the glade if it had landed. But it flailed empty air as Clanton left his feet in a headlong dive that carried him under the swipe and crashed his shoulders against the Kanaka’s legs. Bam! They hit the earth together and the club flew out of the native’s hand.
The next instant they were rolling all over the glade in a desperate dog-fight, gouging and slugging. Then Clanton, in the midst of their frantic revolutions, perceived that Raquel had secured the club and was dancing about, trying to get a swipe at his antagonist. Clanton, knowing the average accuracy of a woman’s aim, was horrified. The Kanaka had him by the throat, trying to drive thumbs and fingers through the thick cords of muscle that protected the white man’s wind-pipe and jugular, but it was the risk of being accidentally brained by a wild swipe of Raquel’s club that galvanized Clanton to more desperate energy.
