The two children then relapsed into silence, gazing out into the dark night, and giving way to long reveries, interrupted occasionally by a question or remark from one to the other. A long swell undulated the surface of the calm sea, and the screw turned up a luminous furrow in the darkness.
A strange and altogether supernatural incident now occurred. The brother and sister, by some of those magnetic communications which link souls mysteriously together, were the subjects at the same time and the same instant of the same hallucination.
Out of the midst of these waves, with their alternations of light and shadow, a deep plaintive voice sent up a cry, the tones of which thrilled through every fiber of their being.
“Come! come!” were the words which fell on their ears.
They both started up and leaned over the railing, and peered into the gloom with questioning eyes.
“Mary, you heard that? You heard that?” cried Robert.
But they saw nothing but the long shadow that stretched before them.
“Robert,” said Mary, pale with emotion, “I thought—yes, I thought as you did, that—We must both be ill with fever, Robert.”
A second time the cry reached them, and this time the illusion was so great, that they both exclaimed simultaneously, “My father! My father!”
It was too much for Mary. Overcome with emotion, she fell fainting into Robert’s arms.