rom you, with more success, it seems, than I expected. Indeed I am
not sure that I am wise to let you see them now, for though you declare
that Jane is dead and buried, she might re-arise at any moment. I do
not believe that men forget their first loves, Leonard, though they
may persuade themselves to the contrary--when they are a long way from
them."

"Don't you think that we might drop Jane, dear?" he answered with some
impatience, for Juanna's words brought back to his mind visions of
another love-scene that had taken place amid the English snows more than
seven years before.

"I am sure that I am quite ready to drop her now and for ever. But do
not let us begin to spar when so little time is left to us. Let us talk
of other things. Tell me that you love me, love me, love me, for those
are the words that I would hear ringing in my years before they become
deaf to this world and its echoes, and those are the words with which I
hope that you will greet me some few hours hence and in a happier land.
Leonard, tell me that you love me for to-day and for to-morrow, now and
for ever."

So he told her that and much more, speaking to her earnestly, hopefully,
and most tenderly, as a man might speak to the woman whom he worshipped
and with whom is about to travel to that shore of which we know nothing,
though day and night we hear the waves that bear us forward break yonder
on its beach. They talked for long, and ever while they talked Juanna
grew gentler and more human, as the barriers of pride melted in the fire
of her passion and the shadow of death gathered thicker upon her and the
man she loved. At length her strength gave way utterly and she wept upon
Leonard's breast like some frightened child, and from weeping sank into
deep slumber or swoon, he knew not which. Then he kissed her upon the
forehead, and, carrying her to her bed, laid her down to rest awhile
before she died, returning himself to the throne-room.

Here he found Francisco and Otter.

"Look, Baas," said the dwarf, producing from beneath his goat-skin cloak
an article which he had employed the last hour in constructing. It was
a fearful and a wonderful instrument, made out of the two sacrificial
knives that had been left by the priests on the occasion of the
kidnapping of the last of the Settlement men. The handles of these
knives Otter had lashed together immovably with strips of hide, forming
from them a weapon two feet or more in length, of which the