and I'm too weak. I can't count on myself."

"Count on us," said George. "We'll see you through, you bet. And think of
your sister. We promised we'd take you back with us. We can't go to her
without you, after raising her hopes. It would kill her." Trent glanced
at Virginia, as if expecting her to add encouraging arguments to his; but
she was silent, her eyes alone appealing to Dalahaide. George Trent was
her half-brother, and had known her all her life, but he felt the thrill
of that look in the girl's beautiful eyes. How much more, then, must
Maxime Dalahaide have felt it, he said to himself.

"It is the risk for you I think of--if I fail," the prisoner exclaimed.
"If I had only myself to consider I should hesitate no longer."

"We have come a long, long way to you," Virginia's eyes said; and her
lips would have added something had not George's hand fallen suddenly in
warning on her shoulder. "Somebody is coming," he whispered. "For all our
sakes, don't fail us, Dalahaide. We shall look for you to-night--there,"
and he nodded toward the water. "Make your way to the beach and hide
among the rocks till you see our little boat. Don't take to the
water--remember the sharks. If you're not there to-night, we'll hang
about till the next."

"We'll wait till you come, if we wait a year," said Virginia.

There was time for no more. The Commandant, with Roger Broom by his side,
appeared round the corner of the winding path near by.

"Well, mademoiselle, have we given you time to finish your interview,
and has it been satisfactory?" asked the old Frenchman good-naturedly.

"You have given us just enough time, and it has been most satisfactory,
thank you," the girl answered. "I hope," she added, "to make the very
best use of it later." And again her eyes met those of the statue that
she had waked to life.

CHAPTER IX

A CRY ACROSS THE WATER

It was night in the harbour of Noumea; a night of pitiless, white,
revealing moonlight which sharpened the black outline of every shadow,
and made the whitewashed wall of each low house gleam like
mother-o'-pearl. Had there been no secret business on foot, Virginia
Beverly's beauty-loving soul would have been on its knees in worship of
the scene as she sat on the deck of the yacht, which seemed not to float
in water, but to hang suspended in the transparent, mingling azure of sea
and sky. To her the moon was an enemy, cruel and terrible. She would have
given her right hand