Suddenly we were awakened.
There had come a great sound of cannonading on the sea; the last of it was still in my waking ears. It seemed to have come from close by. The night drew on towards the dawn, and was not so pitchy dark; I thought I made out the loom of a large ship. Ay, it was a ship!
But not for long! Scarce, indeed, had she hazily taken form before our eyes, but, with a prodigious sound, she blew up.
Stunned by the concussion, I swooned in the boat.
CHAPTER XVII.
DOCTOR COPICUS.
How long I lay in the swoon I know not; but, on my coming out of it, a strange, shrill voice sounded in my ears.
I looked up, to behold a man who stood by the side of a settee whereon I lay. He was a very tall, lean, aged man, dressed in a scarlet robe; and I knew him: ’twas he whom the Englishman had called the Doctor. I was fallen into the hands of the Master of the Haunted Island!
The place was a little chamber, or cell, of stone. There was another there, and him, also, I recognised from the Englishman’s account; a young man, slender and pale, habited in black—who but the secretary, Ambrose?
The Doctor observed me. “So!” said he softly, “The spirit hath returned to his ark of flesh. He hath returned void.... No slightest olive-branch of knowledge....”
He smiled on me; then, beckoning Ambrose after him, he went stoopingly from the place, the door shutting to upon them almost without sound.