eyes. Once more the pain awaked
me; and I found myself lying, I suppose, on some stretcher, being slowly
borne on men's shoulders up a steep path. I was too weak to do aught
but groan, and my groans my bearers heard not. But at last the English
voice said; "Halt, and set him down. He may be dead already and so save
us the pains of carrying him further."

'Twas a voice I knew; but the agony of my setting down made me forget
whose, until once more bending over me, and putting back the hair from
my brow, the fellow exclaimed:

"Why, this is--mercy on us!--if it be not him they called Dexter."

"What!" cried another voice, "doth Neptunus yield us pearls? and on
these inhospitable shores doth Arion indeed discover his lost 'prentice?
hath the Hollander wings to carry--"

"A curse on thy tom-fooling tongue!" said the other. "Hath not the poor
wretch had drenching enough, that you must spout thus on the top of him?
Say, Humphrey Dexter, how fare you?"

"Is that you, Jack Gedge?"

"Sure enough."

"And Ludar?"

The fellow gave a gasp, but said nothing. And, in the horror of that
silence, I lost all care of life.

I must have been lying still in the same place when next, with a strange
thrill of wonder, I lifted my eyes and saw, bent over me, the sweet face
of my own Jeannette.

"Humphrey," whispered she, as she kissed my wet brow, "is it indeed
thou?"

"Ay, sweetheart," said I.

And I forgot all else for a while.

Presently they carried me up to the top of the path, Jeannette walking
with her hand in mine. And so, till before us rose a grim portal which
I knew well to be the gate of Dunluce.

The sight of that familiar entry recalled to my mind the great burden on
my heart.

"Jeannette," said I, as she bent beside me. "What of Ludar?"

"We hope, dear Humphrey, thine is not the only life saved from the
wreck."

"Is he heard of? And the maiden--?" I asked.

"I know not. Till you named him just now, no one knew he was with you.
But now the soldier and the poet have gone to seek news. And my dear
mistress, I think, waits here."

"She is here? How come you both in Dunluce?" I asked.

"The old McDonnell will not allow the maiden out of his sight, so dearly
he loves her," said Jeannette.

As soon as I was laid in a bed, and my broken arm set by the castle
leech, I revived quickly. And as I did so, the load on my heart
concerning Ludar grew so heavy, that not even the presence of Jeannette
c