Whether the faintness which came over Reginald at this moment--a thing he had never experienced before--was caused by the change from the cool sea breezes to the warmth exhaled by the thick vegetation of the island and the rich odour sent forth by the flowers, he has never yet been able to tell. All he knows is that, at her words, the place where they were standing swam round him, the palms seemed to be dancing a stately measure with each other and the island spinning, too, while he heard the girl's voice exclaiming:
"You are not well. What has overcome you?"
"I do not know," he replied. "It must be the heat ashore; yet I am used to all kinds of heat. A little water would revive me. I will go back to the cutter."
"There is a rill close by," she said; "come and drink from that."
He went towards it, following the direction she indicated, his mind still confused, his brain whirling. "Where had he heard of a rill before in connection with the island?" he asked himself; yet as he did so he knew very well it was somewhere in Nicholas's narrative. And the hut and the cellar beneath! Above all, a girl whose red mane was thrown behind her! Where had he heard of one such as that?
He drank from the well and cooled his hands and face--still remembering that Nicholas had in some portion of his story described how he had done this same thing--and all the time the girl stood watching him.
"You will pardon me this exhibition of weakness, I hope," he said. "But I am all right now. And your story is so interesting, so much like a romance, that--if I may stay a little longer--I should like to hear some more of it. That is, if my curiosity is not offensive."
"No," the girl said simply, and her very ease before him and her lack of ceremony showed how much a stranger she was to any worldly conventionality. "I am very glad to have anyone to talk to. One gets tired of living always, or nearly always, alone."
"Alone! But surely you don't live alone in Coffin Island? I had heard there were at least two--two men here."
"There are sometimes--my father and brother; but they go away to sea for weeks together, especially since they have almost abandoned the thought of our finding the fabulous treasure. They are away now, though I expect them back soon."