.

The Command.
I think that both Bastin and Bickley, by instinct as it were, knew what had passed between Yva and myself and that she had promised herself to me.

They showed this by the way in which they avoided any mention of her name.

Also they began to talk of their own plans for the future as matters in which I had no part.

Thus I heard them discussing the possibility of escape from the island whereof suddenly they seemed to have grown weary, and whether by any means two men (two, not three) could manage to sail and steer the lifeboat that remained upon the wreck.