rifling and fickle and
worthless heart, Helena Emory, that if it came to the test, and if
life and all the world and all happiness were to be either all yours
or all mine, I'd go anywhere, do anything, and leave it all to you
rather than keep any for myself."

"Go, then!"

"If I might, I should. But male and female made He them. I spoke of us
as units human, but not as the unit _homo_. Much as I despise you,
Helena, I can not separate you from myself in my own thought. We seem
to me to be like old Webster's idea of the Union--'one and
indivisible.' And since I can not divide us in any thought, I, John
Doe, alias Black Bart, alias the man you once called Harry, have
resolved that we shall go undivided, sink or swim, survive or perish.
If the world were indeed my oyster, I should open it for us both; but
saying both, I should see only you. Isn't it odd, Helena?"

"It is eleven-thirty," said she.

"Almost time for luncheon. Do you think me a 'good provider,' Helena?"

"Humph! Mr. Davidson was. While your stolen stores last in your stolen
boat, I suppose we shall not be hungry."

"Or thirsty?" She shrugged.

"Or barren of cork-tips of the evening? Or devoid of guitar strings?"

"I shall need none."

"Ah, but you will! It belikes me much, fair maid, to disport me at
ease this very eve, here on the deck, under the moon, and to hear you
yourself and none other, fairest of all my captives, touch the lute,
or whatever you may call it, to that same air you and I, fair maid,
heard long ago together at a lattice under the Spanish moon. A swain
touched then his lute, or whatever you may call it, to his Dulcinea.
Here 'tis in the reverse. The fair maid, having no option, shall touch
the lute, or whatever you call it, to John Doe, Black Bart, or
whatever you may call him; who is her captor, who feels himself about
to love her beyond all reason; and who, if he find no relief,
presently, in music--which is better than drink--will go mad, go mad,
and be what he should not be, a cruel master; whereas all he asks of
fate is that he shall be only a kind captor and a gentle friend."

Her head held very high, she passed me without a word and threw open
the door of her suite.

[Illustration: It was a love song of old Spain]

... And that night, that very night, that very wondrous, silent,
throbbing night of the Sabbath and the South, when all the air was as
it seemed to me in saturation, in a suspense of ecstasy, to be broke