ladies
sang their breeziest sea-songs to cheer them at the work. The sail-boat
rounded a curve and was almost out of sight.

"Oars never caught sails yet," muttered St. George, and he put his boat
to the shore. "There, Murray, try your lazy mettle, and take my oar. As
for me, I'm off,"--and he sprang upon the bank, sending the boat
spinning off into the current again from his foot. In ten minutes a
horseman went galloping by on the high-road skirting the shore, with a
pace like that of the Spectre of the Storm.

"Now, Mr. Marlboro'," said Eloise, "shall we not turn back, victorious?"

"Turn?" said Marlboro', shaking loose another fold of the linen. "I
never turn! Look your last on the tiny tribe,--we shall see them no
more!"

Eloise sprang to her feet. He caught her hand and replaced her; his face
was so white that it shone, there was a wild glitter in his eye, and the
smile that brooded over her had something in it absolutely terrific.

"We have gone far enough," said Eloise, resolutely. "I wish to rejoin my
friends."

"You are with me!" said Marlboro', proudly.

She was afraid to say another word, for to oppose him now in his
exultant rage might only work the mood to frenzy. The creek had widened
almost to a river,--the sea was close at hand, with its great tumbling
surf. She looked at the horizon and the hill for help, but none came;
destruction was before them, and on they flew.

Marlboro' stood now, and steadied the tiller with his foot.

"This is motion!" said he. "We fly upon the wings of the wind! The
viewless wind comes roaring out of the black region of the East, it
fills the high heaven, it roars on to the uttermost undulation of the
atmosphere, and we are a part of it! We are only a mote upon its breath,
a dust-atom driven before it, Eloise,--and yet one great happiness is
greater than it, drowns it in a vaster flood of viewless power, can
whisper to it calm!"

How should Eloise contradict him? With such rude awakening, he might
only snatch her in his arms and plunge down to death. Perhaps he half
divined the fear.

"Yes, Eloise," he said. "They are both here, life and death, at our
beck! I can take you to my heart, one instant the tides divide, then
they close above us, and you are mine for ever and ever and
only,--sealed mine beneath all this crystal sphere of the waters! We
hear the gentle lapping of the ripples on the shore, we hear the tones
of evening-bells swim out and melt above us, we