[CHAPTER XIII]
THE UNWILLING GUEST
After the light of dawn went out upon the cliffs of Rhuda Mor, Doris Mather hung for a long while upon the brink of an abyss, below her darkness, above her light. She strove upward, but in the dim moments of half-consciousness was aware of a force restraining her and a recurrence of the odor in which the darkness had first come. She had a sense of motion and of jolting, the feeling of arms about her, a descent, the sound of water and the rocking of a boat. Brief glimpses she had of sunlight, which revealed outlines dimly, like the glow of summer lightning upon familiar objects, making them curiously unfamiliar. John Rizzio’s face persisted in these visions, a fantastic Rizzio, much larger than the man she knew, deferential and punctilious as ever, and strangely grave. A stout man with a swarthy face in a cap and brass buttons, just above her, darkly outlined against white clouds which seemed to be whirling rapidly past him. Dully she found herself wondering where the clouds were going so rapidly and why they didn’t come back.... Later, darkness and peace, where there were no visions and the sky no longer whirled ... a steady vibration which soothed her, and she blissfully slept.
When she awoke the visions were gone, and as her senses returned she started up, but her head swam and she sank back again. As she had risen a woman emerged from the shadows of the room and came forward. And then slowly, as full consciousness returned, the girl realized that she was on an ocean-going vessel in a cabin or stateroom very beautifully appointed. She started up in her bed and looked out of the port-hole to see the amber crests of waves leaping rapidly past. Then she heard the woman’s voice speaking.
“You are feeling better?”
Doris turned and looked at her, a woman of middle age, with a kindly face, dressed in white linen.
“What yacht is this?” she asked.
“The Sylph, miss—Mr. Rizzio’s,” she replied.
Doris thought for a moment. The last thing her waking consciousness remembered were the cliffs of Rhuda Mor.
“How did I come here?” she asked again.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know, miss.”