“Is my husband quite well, Mr. Diaz?”
“Quite well, madam,” he replied, still staring straight before him.
His voice appalled her, and she made no further effort to break the dreadful silence as she looked at the black bulk of the island, along whose fissured sides there every now and then ran ragged sheets of smoky flame. The boat rounded the island, and then when opposite the little bay, Diaz swung her head round, and headed directly for the shore.
“Are we landing here?” asked the woman in a faint, terrified voice.
“Yes.”
The boat touched the shore, the crew jumped out, carried Mrs. Brabant's two boxes to the beach, placed a lighted boat-lantern on one, and then Diaz silently held out his hand to assist her on shore.
She stepped out, and then stood facing him for a moment, her cheek showing the pallor of deadly fear. Then the seaman thrust his hand in the breast of his coat, and handed her a letter. In another instant, without a word of farewell, he had leapt into the boat again, which at once pushed off—and she was alone.
When daylight broke it revealed two figures on the lonely beach—one a woman, who lay prone upon the ground, and wept in silent anguish, and the other a man, whose frightful aspect made him look scarcely human. He was kneeling beside one of the boxes, glaring with the eyes of one almost mad with horror at a letter he had taken from the woman's hand when he discovered her lying unconscious.
“I have known everything from the very first. Danvers said
in one of his letters to you that life with you would be
happiness unutterable, even in a desert place. I have
brought you here to meet him. He has waited long.
“John Brabant.”