contrast than that between this fine room
below and the still, desolate sea above, no mind could imagine. For, on
the one hand, were the insignia of civilization--luxury, display, the
splendid apartment, the well-dressed women, the table decked out with
fine linen and silver, the windows showing the sea-depths and all their
wondrous quivering life; on the other hand, the black shapes of night
and death, the menace of the boats, the anchored yacht, the darkening
skies, the looming island. We sat down fourteen souls, that might have
met in some great country house, and there have gathered in friendship
and frivolity. Never in all my life had I seen Miss Ruth so full of
vivacity or girlish charm. Her laughter was like the music of bells;
the jest, the kindly word was for every man; and yet sometimes I, at
her side, could look deep into those grey-blue eyes to read a truer
story there. And in the babble of the talk she would whisper some
treasured word to me, or touch my hand with her own, or say, "Jasper,
it must be well, it must be well with us!" Of that which lay above in
the darkening East, no man spoke or appeared to think. There was ruby
wine in our glasses; the little French girls capered about us like
nymphs from the sea; we spoke of the old time, of sunny days in the
blue Mediterranean, of wilder days off the English shores, of our homes
so distant and our hopes so high; but never once of the night or that
which must befall.

_Monday. At eleven o'clock._

We have now been at our stations for two hours and nothing has
transpired. I have Clair-de-Lune with me at the great sea-gate, and
Dolly Venn and Seth Barker are at the gun. The night is so dark that
the best trained eye can distinguish little either on sea or land.
Ken's Island itself is now but a blur of black on a cloud-veiled
horizon. We have shut off every light in the house itself; the reef
runs no longer beneath the sea like a vein of golden light, nor do the
windows cast aureoles upon the sleeping water. What breeze there is
comes in hot gusts like breath from heated waters. We cannot see
Czerny's yacht nor espy any of his boats near or afar; but we crouch
together in the shelter of the rocks, and there is water near to our
hand, and food if we seek it, and the ammunition piled, and the barrels
of the rifles outstanding, and the figures with their unspoken
thoughts, their hopes, their fears of the dreadful dawn that must be.
Whence out of the night shal