se the years have taught him to worship a
woman's step and to seek that goal of life to which her hand may lead
him.

_An hour later._

We are to go ashore with the dark to see if we can save any of the
refugees marooned on the island. It is a desperate chance and may cost
good men's lives. I do not forbid it, for I have lived and suffered on
Ken's Island myself. If there are living men there now--it may be
women, too--held in that trance of death from which they must awake to
madness or never wake again, the commonest instinct of pity says to me,
"Go." I have consulted Doctor Gray, and he is doubtful of the venture.
"Mind what you are doing, I beg of you," he says. "Are there not women
to save in this house?" Miss Ruth overhears him and draws me aside,
and, putting her hand upon my arm winningly, she lifts her pretty face
to mine and says, "Jasper, you will save them!"

I am going ashore, and Captain Nepeen goes with me.

_At ten o'clock._

We put off a boat at ten o'clock and rowed straight for the open beach.
It was a gloriously clear night, with a heaven of blazing stars and a
sea like flowing silver. The ship's boats made so many black shapes,
like ocean drift in the pools of light; and Czerny's yacht, speaking of
that dread Presence, lay as an evil omen in the anchorage to the
northward. Ken's Island itself was uplifted like some mountain of the
sea, snowcapped in its dazzling peaks, harbouring its wayward forests
and lovely glens and fresh meadows which the moon's light frosted. And
over all was that thin veil of the fog, a steaming blue vapour flecked
with the richest hues; now drifting in clouds of changing tints, now
spreading into fantastic creations and phantom cities, pillars of
translucent yellow flame, banks of darker cloud as though a storm were
gathering. Sounds of the night came to us from that dismal island; we
heard the lowing of the kine, the sea-bird's hoot, ever and anon the
terrible human cry which spoke of a soul in agony. And with these were
mingled grimmer sounds, like very music of the storm: the echo of
distant gunshots fired by Czerny's men at the anchored yacht which
refused them harbourage.

There were four with me in the boat, and Captain Nepeen was one of
them. I had set Peter Bligh at the tiller, and Seth Barker and an
American seaman to pull the oars. We spoke rare words, for even a
whisper would carry across that night-bound sea. There were rifles in
our hands; good hope at o