Claire: The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, by a Blind Author. Leslie Burton Blades

I'm afraid I can't walk," she said.

      "Good God!" he exclaimed. "Can't walk?"

      She turned toward him, smiling faintly. "I was struck when I washed overboard, and my ankle, I think, is broken. I am sorry," she added.

      Her tone was slightly apologetic, and he laughed nervously. "Oh, that's all right," he said, assuringly, then stammered, "I mean—" He hesitated, and she laughed.

      "I mean that we can get along," he continued, stubbornly. "Heaven knows I am sorry. But you can't realize what it means to have some one near you who can see."

      She did not answer for a minute, then said quietly: "Shall we breakfast before beginning anything else?"

      He reached in his pocket for his penknife. It was gone. The blank expression of disgust on his face made her ask: "What is it?"

      "My knife," he said. "It is gone."

      They sat opposite each other, the clams between them. Each followed a different trend of ideas. He was raging at this last mishap, and considering means of opening the clams. She was conjecturing over the fate of the City of Panama and wondering what she could do, alone here with this blind man. Her night-gown and a heavy skirt had been all she had worn when she had rushed on deck in the night. She looked around her at the rocks and thought how foolish she had been to leave her shoes.

      At last he rose and began to grope back along the beach.

      Noticing that his hands were torn and bleeding, she said, hastily: "Don't do that. What are you looking for, anyway?"

      "Stones," he answered, stopping.

      "I will direct you," she to him. "Left—right—a little ahead now." Guided by her, he moved until his hand touched a small stone. He found two of them and came back to her side.

      She watched him while he tried to break a clam-shell between the two rocks. "Let me," she said, taking hold of one of them. "Your hands are too badly cut." He hesitated.

      "Please," she said. "I can at least do the woman's part and prepare the meal. Especially when you bring it to me."

      He laughed and gave up the stones.

      "I am desperately thirsty," she said, breaking open the shells.

      "I feel as though my tongue were swelling fast," he admitted.

      They dug the tiny clams from the shells, and ate for a few minutes in silence, then she said: "I can't go any more of them."

      He wondered if she were not hungry, but said nothing. After eating a few more, he understood. Then he, too, stopped.

      "I've got to find water," he said. He waited for her to speak.

      At last she said: "I can see nothing that might indicate fresh water. Where will you go?"

      "Up the beach, I suppose."

      "There are mountains up the beach, and back of us, too. You could never find your way out." Her tone was despairing.

      "True," he admitted.

      There was a long pause. Then she said slowly: "It seems to be your only hope, doesn't it? Well, I guess you had better go. God bless you!" she concluded as though it were her last word.

      Suddenly it occurred to him that he had been thinking and talking of himself alone. The idea of parting from this woman who could see, whom it seemed to him he had found as his own means of salvation, immediately became impossible.

      "I am going to take you with me," he stated quietly.

      "You forget," she said, "I cannot walk."

      He had forgotten it for the moment. Now it filled him with new terror. He laid his hand on hers. "I can't help it," he said finally, "I can't leave you. I will carry you."

      "Oh, no!" Her protest was genuine.

      He felt her fear that she would hamper him. "Don't be foolish," he said as though he had known her for years, "I am not being gallant. This is not a time for gallantry. I am simply being sensible. You can't sit here, can you?"

      "I can't help myself, can I? I can't walk."

      "I can help it," he retorted.

      "It would simply make your chance of escape impossible," she argued. "It is preposterous. Why should you? Your life is worth to you as much as mine is to me. I know what that means. I would not stay here if I could help it. I would not sacrifice my life for yours. Neither shall you sacrifice yours for mine."

      "See here," he demanded, "who are you and where did you get that attitude toward life?"

      It was one he knew. It was the hard, relentless theory of the struggle of animal survival which his thinking in college had led him to accept. There was in it no touch of duty, no sense of obligation, and very little pity. He had called himself a hard materialist, and had never lived up to his theory. Now here beside him in this outlandish situation was a woman quietly arguing his own philosophy of life to him against herself.

      She laughed. "It's my way of thinking, and I mean it," she said, twisting her hair up on her head. "I got it out of four years of thought and reading in a college, and I do not thank the college for it. I find it very inconvenient, but it is my belief. I have tried to live by it."

      "So is it mine," he said, "and I mean to live by it."

      "Very well," she answered. "That aggressive tone against me is not necessary. Go ahead and get through if you can. Good-by, my friend."

      "I'm afraid you do not understand," he answered her steadily. "I want to live. To do it, you are necessary to me. I need your eyes. Very well, whether you like it or not, you are going with me."

      He rose quickly, and stretched his muscles. His head ached, his whole being cried for water. He knew he could not carry her far, but without her he was powerless.

      "Suppose," she suggested, her eyes flashing from hazel to deep-brown, "suppose you do take me. Have you any assurance that my eyes will serve you rightly?"

      "Your own life, which is pleasant to you, will depend upon your eyes serving me rightly," he said coldly, as he stooped over her.

      She laid a restraining hand on his arm. "And in the long days that we may have to go on together, what will you do in return for my eyes?"

      "Carry you," he answered.

      "Very well, but there are two things you must know," she said quietly. "First, that I am married; second, that I am quite as steadfast in my belief as I said. If you make one single attempt to establish more than a frank comradeship, based on mutual support in our unforeseen partnership, my eyes will serve you falsely."

      He laughed a little as he picked her up. She gasped with pain.

      "I can't help hurting you," he said gently.

      "It's all right," she answered, putting her arm around his neck so that he might the more easily bear her. "We are off on our great adventure. The halt and the blind! Such a mad pair!"

      He smiled, and started slowly up the beach.

      "I shall have to develop a system of one word guides," she mused.

      "Left—right—slow—ahead—all right—and so on," he admitted.

      Suddenly she laughed out merrily. "My friend, a stranger pilgrimage the world never knew. What is your name?"

      "Lawrence," he said.

      "Mine," she answered, "is Claire. Go a little to the left."

      He turned slightly, and plodded through the sand.

CHAPTER II.

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