From billow to billow on life’s wild sea,
With nothing but sorrow and care for me.
The gods have spoken,
My prayers they spurn,
Yet tho’ thus broken,
I make return
Of holocausts high on their altars bare,
An offering bitter of my despair.
The saying, “It never rains but it pours,” was fully exemplified by the series of calamities which had befallen the once peaceful Isle of Fantasy and its inhabitants. First the treachery of Caliphronas, then the war which had killed so many people, now a threatened eruption of an apparently extinct volcano, and, to crown all, a band of pirates waiting at the only outlet of escape, to massacre the survivors as they fled from the perils within. Evidently the sins of Rudolph Roylands’ youth were now bearing fruit, and his ancestral Ate was now exacting her full penalty for those half-forgotten episodes of his early life, by depriving him of all he valued most in the world. One thing after another had been torn from his reluctant grasp, and now it seemed as if his life itself was to crown the measure of repayment. Standing on the lofty cliff, with his nephew, daughter, and dependants beside him, Justinian watched the pirates landing from their boats with cynical despair, feeling that the end of all things had come as far as he was concerned.
Owing to the mental and physical trials of the last few weeks, the Demarch had lost to a great extent his iron nerve, and could no longer conceive, decide, and execute his projects with his former promptitude. The loss of his island had turned him from a vigorous, determined leader into a feeble old man, and although now and then his spirits did flash up with a gleam of brilliancy, it was apparent to every eye that he was no longer fitted either to lead or control matters at this final crisis of affairs. It was then that Maurice showed himself a capable commander, and, leaving his worn-out uncle to the care of the women, instinctively took affairs into his own hands without further loss of time.