es became in a measure reversed-- Helen the fisherman and forager,
Hazel the cook and domestic.

He was as busy as ever, but in a narrow circle; he found pearl oysters
near the sunk galleon, and, ere he had been lame many weeks, he had
entirely lined the sides of the cavern with mother-of-pearl set in
cement, and close as mosaic.

Every day he passed an hour in paradise; for his living crutch made him
take a little walk with her; her hand held his; her arm supported his
shoulder; her sweet face was near his, full of tender solicitude; they
seemed to be one; and spoke in whispers to each other, like thinking
aloud. The causes of happiness were ever present; the causes of
unhappiness were out of sight, and showed no signs of approach.

And, of the two, Helen was the happiest. Before a creature so pure as
this marries and has children, the great maternal instinct is still
there, but feeds on what it can get--first a doll, and then some helpless
creature or other. Too often she wastes her heart's milk on something
grown up, but as selfish as a child. Helen was more fortunate; her child
was her hero, now so lame that he must lean on her to walk. The days
passed by, and the island was fast becoming the world to those two, and
as bright a world as ever shone on two mortal creatures.

It was a happy dream.

What a pity that dreams dissolve so soon! This had lasted for nearly two
months, and Hazel was getting better, though still not well enough, or
not fool enough, to dismiss his live crutch, when one afternoon Helen,
who had been up on the heights, observed a dark cloud in the blue sky
toward the west. There was not another cloud visible, and the air
marvelously clear; time, about three quarters of an hour before sunset.
She told Hazel about this solitary cloud, and asked him, with some
anxiety, if it portended another storm. He told her to be under no
alarm--there were no tempests in that latitude except at the coming and
going out of the rains--but he should like to go round the Point and look
at her cloud.

She lent him her arm, and they went round the Point; and there they saw a
cloud entirely different from anything they had ever seen since they were
on the island. It was like an enormous dark ribbon stretched along the
sky, at some little height above the horizon. Notwithstanding its
prodigious length, it got larger before their very eyes.

Hazel started.

Helen felt him start, and asked him, with some surpris