island"--her eyes looked off toward Muloa now impending upon us and
lighting up the heavens with its sudden flare--"it seems incredible that
I ever set foot upon it.

"Perhaps you understand," she went on, after a pause, "that I have not
told my husband. But I have not deceived him. He knows that I was once
married, and that the man is no longer living. He does not wish to know
more. Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came out here to--to see
a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea concerned me. He thanks the
stars for whatever it was that did bring us out here, for otherwise he
would not have met me."

"It has turned out most happily," I murmured.

"It was almost disaster. After meeting Mr. Joyce--and I was weak enough
to let myself become engaged--to have discovered that I was still
chained to a living creature like that.... I should have killed myself."

"But surely the courts----"

She shook her head with decision. "My church does not recognize that
sort of freedom."

We were drawing steadily nearer to Muloa. The mountain was breathing
slowly and heavily--a vast flare that lifted fanlike in the skies and
died away. Lightning played fitfully through the dense mass of smoke and
choking gases that hung like a pall over the great cone. It was like the
night sky that overhangs a city of gigantic blast-furnaces, only
infinitely multiplied. The sails of the _Sylph_ caught the ruddy tinge
like a phantom craft gliding through the black night, its canvas still
dyed with the sunset glow. The faces of the crew, turned to watch the
spectacle, curiously fixed and inhuman, were picked out of the gloom by
the same fantastic light. It was as if the schooner, with masts and
riggings, etched black against the lurid sky, sailed on into the Day of
Judgment.

It was after midnight. The _Sylph_ came about, with sails trembling, and
lost headway. Suddenly she vibrated from stem to stern, and with a soft
grating sound that was unmistakable came to rest. We were aground in
what should have been clear water, with the forest-clad shore of Muloa
lying close off to port.

The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, as
the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with scarcely a
jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a twinkling
Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and after a swift
glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the same dumfounded
look