"As clean as the wind has washed the sky."

Not a cloud stained the broad expanse from horizon to horizon.

"That's a beautiful way to put it. Now that we are here on the island,
we begin all over again and forget what happened on the ship?"

"Aye, all of it."

"Shake on it."

He took her hand, but so gingerly that she laughed.

"We have to be careful of you," he explained seriously. "Here we are,
as McTee puts it, on the rim of the world, two men an' one woman. If
something happens to one of us, a third of our population's gone."

"A third of our population! Then I'm very important?"

"You are."

He was so serious that it disconcerted her. It suddenly became
impossible for her to meet his eyes, they burned so bright, so eager,
with something like a threat in them. She hailed the returning figure
of McTee with relief.

He came bearing a large gourd, and he knelt before Kate so that she
might look into it. She cried out at what she saw, for he had washed
the inside of the gourd and filled it with cool water from the spring.