Toward dawn something awoke me and I sat up in my blanket under the moon.
But my leg had not been pulled.

Kemper snored at my side. In her little dog-tent the pretty waitress
probably was fast asleep. I knew it because the string she had tied to
one of her ornamental ankles still lay across the ground convenient to my
hand. In any emergency I had only to pull it to awake her.

A similar string, tied to my ankle, ran parallel to hers and disappeared
under the flap of her tent. This was for her to pull if she liked. She
had never yet pulled it. Nor I the other. Nevertheless I truly felt that
these humble strings were, in a subtler sense, ties that bound us
together. No wonder Kemper's behaviour had slightly irritated me.

I looked up at the silver moon; I glanced at Kemper's unlovely bulk,
swathed in a blanket; I contemplated the dog-tent with, perhaps, that
slight trace of sentiment which a semi-tropical moon is likely to inspire
even in a jellyfish. And suddenly I remembered Grue and looked for him.

He was accustomed to sleep in his boat, but I did not see him in either
of the boats. Here and there were a few lumpy shadows in the moonlight,
but none of them was Grue lying prone on the ground. Where the devil had
he gone?

Cautiously I untied my ankle string, rose in my pajamas, stepped into my
slippers, and walked out through the moonlight.

There was nothing to hide Grue, no rocks or vegetation except the
solitary palm on the back-bone of the reef.