"And you, I think, must be Miss Denis?"
"Yes."
"And were you really afraid of the savages?"
"I never was so much frightened in all my life, I thought I should have died."
"I see a good deal of them knocking about the islands. They are not such bad fellows, and I doubt their cannibalism."
"I should be sorry to trust them," returned Helen, shuddering.
"You are cold, I see, and wet, of course, but that was your own fault. Here," suddenly removing it, "you must take my coat," throwing it over her knees, where it remained all the time, in spite of her anxious disclaiming. After this there was a long gap in the conversation.
Mr. Lisle undoubtedly possessed what the French call, "a talent for silence." "How grave he looked!" thought Helen. How fast they were going! How frightfully down on one side! The wind was getting louder and louder, till it reached a kind of hoarse scream: the dusk had suddenly given place to Egyptian gloom, and Helen felt sure (as she sat with her hands tightly locked in her lap, and her heart beating very quickly) that they were having more than a mere "blow" as they tore through the water! All at once, the first splash of a cold, salt wave dashed over the boat, and drenched her so unexpectedly that she could not refrain from a stifled exclamation; but this was the only time that she lost her self-control. She sat motionless as an image, and neither moved nor spake, not even when a shrieking gust carried her hat away, and whirled it into the outer darkness; and the storm loosened her long hair, and flung it to the wind to play with. How they flew up the water mountains, and were hurled down like a stone into the corresponding valleys! If they were to be drowned, she hoped that it might be soon; this present suspense was torture. All was so black—an awful opaque blackness—the roar of the tempest the only sound; it came in furious gusts, then died away, whilst wave after wave swept over the boat; and now the low rumble of thunder burst suddenly into one frightful peal, that seemed to shake the very sea itself: a blinding flash lit up the gloom, for a moment it was as daylight. Helen involuntarily turned her eyes towards her companion, and met his point blank. In that second, their two souls seemed to recognize one another; in his glance she read intrepidity, coolness and encouragement. She at least was with a brave man, and might die in worse company! He, on his side, noted the rigid figure of his passenger, her locked hands and firmly-set lips; she was no longer the timid, shrinking creature he had dragged on board the gig less than an hour previously; she was a heroine, capable of looking death in the face, and Death's grim visage was never closer to her than now. Another would have been shrieking and clinging to him; but this girl was nerved to meet her fate alone, and he honestly respected her fortitude. It was certainly just touch and go, if they ever weathered Ross Point, but the boat was a stout one, and the sails were new. The twinkling lights on the island now came in view; how scornfully they seemed to mock these four people, who were struggling for life and death in the surrounding howling darkness!
Another awful plunge into the hollows, and a hissing of boiling waves, and a feeling as of water closing all round them. It seemed to Helen as if this was the end—they had shipped a heavy sea, the boat reeled, staggered, and made another effort—she was not going to founder just yet.
The stricken boatmen shouted hoarsely to one another, and baled in the dark; Helen crept unconsciously closer to the steersman, and during a lull in the blast, she said,—