below, and women's cries be
heard, and something follow which even I dare not contemplate. The
dreadful truth, perhaps, kept our tongues away from it; we talked of
other things, of Czerny and his house, and of what we would do if the
best should befall.

"He wonderful man," old Clair-de-Lune went on, standing, like some old
Neptune of the sea, bolt upright on the pinnacle of rock; "wonderful
man, and none like him! Thirteen year ago he first find this place, and
thirteen year he wreck the ships. I know, for there was a day when he
tell me much and I listen. He say, 'Make great fortune and no trouble
to earn him. If sailor man drown, more fool he.' All the years back,
hundreds of years, ships perish on Ken's Island. Czerny he hear the
story in Japan, and he come to see the place for himself. They say he
once sleep through the fog and mad afterwards. He no longer have right
or wrong or care about the world. He come to Ken's Island and grow
rich. Then his engineers find this rock. Once, long time ago, it have
been part of the island, captain. The--what you say?--volocano, he
shoot fire into the sea; but that was before the peoples. Czerny, he go
down into the rock and he discover great cavern and little cavern, and
he say, 'I live here in the sleep-time.' Plenty of money make fine
house. He shut out the sea wherever he would come in; he build great
windows in the rock; his _mecanicien_, he put up engine and draw air
from the skies. Long year Czerny live here alone. Then one day come
madame--ah, captain, I was sorry when I saw madame come! 'She will
suffer here,' I said; she have suffered much already. Czerny is not as
other men. If madame say to him, 'You good man; you and I live here
always,' then she have everything, she go where she will, she become
the master. But I say when I see her, 'No, never she will not say that.
She good woman.' And then I fear for her, captain; I fear greatly. I
did not know she have the English friend who will save her."

He turned to me wistfully, and I read in his eyes of that deep
affection which little Ruth Bellenden has never failed to win from all
who know and learn to love her.

_Monday. At three o'clock._

We held a council of war in the great hall at this hour, and came upon
a plan to meet the supreme attack which must be made upon us tonight.
We are all of one mind, that Czerny will seek to rush the house under
cover of the darkness, and in this the sunless day must help him. We