sea--"as if Gaspare would fire upon us if
he heard the sound of oars."

"Quick! Quick! Let us get away. Pull harder, Monsieur Emile! How slow
you are!"

Laughingly Artois bent to the oars.

"Vere, you are a baby!" he said.

"And what are you, then, I should like to know?" she answered, with
dignity.

"I! I am an old fellow playing the fool."

Suddenly his gayety had evaporated, and he was conscious of his years.
He let the boat drift for a moment.

"Check me another time, Vere, if you see me inclined to be buffo," he
said.

"Indeed I won't. Why should I? I like you best when you are quite
natural."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Look! There are the lights! Oh, how strange they are. Go a little
nearer, but not too near."

"Tell me, then. Remember, I can't see."

"Yes. One, two, three--"

She counted. Each time she said a number he pulled. And she, like a
little coxswain, bent towards him with each word, giving him a bodily
signal for the stroke. Presently she stretched out her hand.

"Stop!"

He stopped at once. For a minute the boat glided on. Then the impetus he
had given died away from it, and it floated quietly without perceptible
movement upon the bosom of the sea.

"Now, Monsieur Emile, you must come and sit by me."

Treading softly he obeyed her, and sat down near her, facing the shadowy
coast.

"Now watch!"

They sat in silence, while the boat drifted on the smooth and oily water
almost in the shadow of the cliffs. At some distance beyond them the
cliffs sank, and the shore curved sharply in the direction of the
island with its fort. There was the enigmatic dimness, though not dense
darkness, of the night. Nearer at hand the walls of rock made the night
seem more mysterious, more profound, and at their base flickered the
flames which had attracted Artois' attention. Fitfully now these flames,
rising from some invisible brazier, or from some torch fed by it, fell
upon half-naked forms of creatures mysteriously busy about some hidden
task. Men they were, yet hardly men they seemed, but rather unknown
denizens of rock, or wave, or underworld; now red-bodied against the
gleam, now ethereally black as are shadows, and whimsical and shifty,
yet always full of meaning that could not be divined. They bent, they
crouched. They seemed to die down like a wave that is, then is not.
Then rising they towered, lifting brawny arms towards the stars.
Silence seemed to flow from them, to exude from their labors. An