uthful picture?

There was no new attack, I say, nor any sure news from the caverns
below. From time to time men went to the stairs-head and watched the
seas washing green and slimy in the corridors, or spoke of them beating
upon the very steps of the great hall and threatening to rise up and up
until they engulfed us all and conquered even the citadel we held.
Nevertheless, iron gates held them back. Not vainly had Czerny's
master-mind foreseen such a misfortune as this. Those tremendous doors
which divided the upper house from its fellow were stronger than any
sluice-gates, more sure against the water's advance. We held the upper
house; it was ours while we could breathe in it or find life's
sustenance there.

Now, I saw little Ruth in the hour of dawn and she stood with us for a
little while at the open gate and there spoke so brightly of to-morrow,
so lightly of this hour, that she helped us to forget, and made men of
us once more.

"They will not come again to-night, Jasper," she said; "I feel, I know
it! Why should they wait? Something has happened, and something spells
'Good luck.' Oh, yes, I have felt that for the last hour. Things must
be worse before they mend, and they are mending now. The gale will come
at dawn and we shall all go ashore, you and I together, Jasper!"

"Miss Ruth," said I, "that would be the happiest day in all my life.
You bring the dawn always, wherever you go, the good sunlight and God's
blue sky! It has been day for me while I heard your voice and said that
I might serve you!"

She would not answer me; but, as though to give my words their meaning,
we had watched but a little while longer on the rock when suddenly out
of the East the grey light winged over to us, and, spreading its
wonder-rays upon the seas, it rolled the black veil back and showed us
height and valley, sea and land, the white-capped breakers and the dim
heaven beyond them. Many a dawn have I watched and waited for on the
heart of the desolate sea, but never one which carried to me such a
message as then it spake, the joy of action and release, the tight of
life and hope, the clarion call, uplifting, awakening! For I knew that
in day our salvation lay, and that the terrible night was forever
passed; and every faculty being quickened, the mind alert, the eyes no
longer veiled, I stretched out my arms to the sun and said, "Thank
God!"

* * *

It was day, and the fresh sea answered its appeal. Coming quickly as
day