d
made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of
the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist
the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked
frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now
continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of
dull sounds of explosion.

My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that Joyce
and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting under
sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which would prove a
fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the point. The mate gave
a grunt of satisfaction when at length the schooner began to dip her bow
and lay over to her task. Leaving him in charge, I started to go below,
when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully dressed, confronted me. She seemed to
have materialized out of the air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like
burnished copper in the unnatural illumination which bathed the deck,
but her face was ashen, and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop
short.

"You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask.

"Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away,
looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me toward
the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the droop of
her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad impulse which
the dark water suggested.

"Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply.

She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the deck
for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood upon the
water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke:

"What other way out is there?"

"Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your
husband asleep?"

"Thank God, yes!"

"Then you have been awake----"

"For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that went
over her body.

"The man is mad----"

"But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a
prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot endure
it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't you see that
there is no escape--from this?"

The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea.

"When we reach Malduna----" I began, but the words were only torture.

"I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island. Let me live
abandoned--or rather die----"

"Mr