ves of the palms bent and
bowed as though in benediction. A warm breeze from the land filled the
air with the odor of ripening fruit and pungent smells, and the silence
seemed to envelop them and mark them as the only living creatures awake
in the brilliant tropical night.

Hope sank slowly back, and as she did so, her shoulder touched for an
instant against Clay's knee; she straightened herself and made a
movement as though to rise. Her nearness to him and something in her
attitude at his feet held Clay in a spell. He bent forward and laid
his hand fearfully upon her shoulder, and the touch seemed to stop the
blood in his veins and hushed the words upon his lips. Hope raised her
head slowly as though with a great effort, and looked into his eyes.
It seemed to him that he had been looking into those same eyes for
centuries, as though he had always known them, and the soul that looked
out of them into his. He bent his head lower, and stretching out his
arms drew her to him, and the eyes did not waver. He raised her and
held her close against his breast. Her eyes faltered and closed.

"Hope," he whispered, "Hope." He stooped lower and kissed her, and his
lips told her what they could not speak--and they were quite alone.

XIV

An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hood
violently.

"I say!" he called. "Are you asleep up there. We'll never get home at
this rate. Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?"

The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around in
front of it. Hope sat smiling on the box-seat. She was apparently far
from sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him.

"Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday at
breakfast?" asked Langham. "MacWilliams and I are fainting. We move
that we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up and
make them give us some supper."

Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly. "Supper?" she said.
"They want supper!"

Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply. He sat snapping
his whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in an
inconsequent and irritating manner at nothing.

"See here! Do you know that we are lost?" demanded Langham,
indignantly, "and starving? Have you any idea at all where you are?"

"I have not," said Clay, cheerfully. "All I know is that a long time
ago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who