ly exalted by the
familiarity of the two last men of your house--allowed to speak freely
because of my fidelity.... Alas! Alas!"

Seraphina, on the other side of the fire, made a vague gesture, and took
her chin in her hand without looking at him.

"Patience," he mumbled to himself very audibly. "He is rich, this
picaro, O'Brien. But there is, also, a proverb--that no riches shall
avail in the day of vengeance."

Noticing that we had begun to whisper together, he threw himself before
the fire, and was silent.

"Promise me one thing, Juan," murmured Seraphina.

I was kneeling by the side of her seat.

"By all that's holy," I cried, "I shall force him to come out and fight
fair--and kill him as an English gentleman may."

"Not that! Not that!" she interrupted me. She did not mean me to do
that. It was what she feared. It would be delivering myself into that
man's hands. Did I think what that meant? It would be delivering her,
too, into that man's power. She would not survive it. And if I desired
her to live on, I must keep out of O'Brien's clutches.

"In my thoughts I have bound my life to yours, Juan, so fast that the
stroke which cuts yours, cuts mine, too. No death can separate us."

"No," I said.

And she took my head in her hands, and looked into my eyes.

"No more mourning," she whispered rapidly. "No more. I am too young to
have a lover's grave in my life--and too proud to submit...."

"Never," I protested ardently. "That couldn't be."

"Therefore look to it, Juan, that you do not sacrifice your life which
is mine, either to your love--or--or--to revenge." She bowed her head;
the falling hair concealed her face. "For it would be in vain."

"The cloak is perfectly dry now, Senorita," said Castro, reclining on
his elbow on the edge of the darkness.

We two stepped out towards the entrance, leaving her on her knees,
in silent prayer, with her hands clasped on her forehead, and leaning
against the rugged wall of rock. Outside, the earth, enveloped in fire
and uproar, seemed to have been given over to the fury of a devil.

Yes. She was right. O'Brien was a formidable and deadly enemy. I wished
ourselves on board the _Lion_ chaperoned by Mrs. Williams, and in the
middle of the Atlantic. Nothing could make us really safe from his
hatred but the vastness of the ocean. Meantime we had a shelter, for
that night, at least, in this cavern that seemed big enough to contain,
in its black gloom of a burial vaul