turtle-eggs."

They walked back a little and sat down. But for the wild riot in his
brain, Enderby would have noted that every vestige of colour had left
her face.

"You must be hungry," he thought he was saying to her, and he placed
the white objects in her lap.

She turned them slowly over and over in her hands, and then dropped
them with a shudder. Some were flecked with red.

"For God's sake," the man cried, "tell me what you know!"

"I saw it all," she answered.

"I swear to you, Mrs Lan----" (the name stuck in his throat) "I never
meant it. As God is my witness, I swear it. If we ever escape from here
I will give myself up to justice as a murderer."

The woman, with hands spread over her face, shook her head from side to
side and sobbed. Then she spoke. "I thought I loved him, once. . . .
Yet it was for me . . . and you saved my life over and over again in
the boat. All sinners are forgiven we are told. . . . Why should not
you be? . . . and it was for me you did it. And I won't let you give
yourself up to justice or any one. I'll say he died in the boat." And
then the laughter of hysterics.


* * * * *