* * * * *
Where the trade wind was blowing and the green waves breaking on the beach of Grande Anse, welcome and a new life were waiting for them.
The man he had saved from the fer de lance had the will and the power to open the doors of a golden future for them, yet they could not break from yesterday so soon.
Heedless of time or place they sat by the road-side fountain, till the shadows were lengthening on the road and the valleys humming with night. Darkness found them on the ruined road above the ruined city.
They had come almost unconsciously to look at it again, to breathe the air of the past through which they had so miraculously wandered, and, as they stood clasping one another, gazing through the vagueness at the lights of the warships in the bay, the sea of a sudden became touched with silver and the rising moon broke above the shoulder of Pelée.
The light flooded across the harbour and struck the shrouded city like a tide. The ruins of the Place Bertine came into view; its broken and veiled cathedral, the thread of darkness outlining the Rue Victor Hugo.
In the moonlight the desolation became robbed of its terror and all was touched with the poetry of deep antiquity, from the flooding sea to the forms of the lovers set far above the ruins.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.