isper, and suddenly the door was flung wide. A
tall man raised Dion and bore him into the open air. While she was still
gazing after him, a second figure of equal size approached her and,
hastily begging her permission, lifted her in his arms like a child, and
as she inhaled the cool night air and felt the water through which her
bearer waded splash up and wet her feet, her eyes sought her new-made
husband--but in vain; the night was very dark, and the lights on the
shore did not reach this spot so far below the walls of the quay.

Barine was frightened; but a few minutes after the outlines of a large
fishing boat loomed through the darkness, dimly illumined by the harbour
lights, and the next instant the giant who carried her placed her on the
deck, and a deep voice whispered: "All's well. I'll bring some wine at
once."

Then Barine saw her husband lying motionless on a couch which had been
prepared for him in the prow of the boat. Bending over him, she perceived
that he had fainted, and while rubbing his forehead with the wine,
raising his head on her lap, cheering him, and afterwards by the light of
a small lantern carefully renewing the bandage on his shoulder, she did
not notice that the vessel was moving through the water until the boatman
set the triangular sail.

She had not been told where the boat was bearing her, and she did not
ask. Any spot that she could share with Dion was welcome. The more lonely
the place, the more she could be to him. How her heart swelled with
gratitude and love! When she bent over him, kissed his forehead, and felt
how feverishly it burned, she thought, "I will nurse you back to health,"
and raised her eyes and soul to her favourite god, to whom she owed the
gift of song, and who understood everything beautiful and pure, to thank
Phoebus Apollo and beseech him to pour his rays the next morning on a
convalescent man. While she was still engaged in prayer the boat touched
the shore. Again strong arms bore her and Dion to the land, and when her
foot touched the solid earth, her rescuer, the freedman Pyrrhus, broke
the silence, saying: "Welcome, wife of Dion, to our island! True, you
must be satisfied to take us as we are. But if you are as content with us
as we are glad to serve you and your lord, who is ours also, the hour of
leave-taking will be far distant."

Then, leading the way to the house, he showed her as her future
apartments two large whitewashed rooms, whose sole ornament