Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and, without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed on the man rapidly approaching them.
"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is, too,—he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. I think he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is an indefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor; don't you think so, Agapit?"
Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eye on the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in dark brown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small and twinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzled mustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off when he neared the group.
His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah, Charlitte, Charlitte,—you have come back!"
[CHAPTER XIV.]
BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK.
"Whate'er thy lot, whoe'er thou be,—
Confess thy folly, kiss the rod,
And in thy chastening sorrow, see
The hand of God."
Montgomery.
Bidiane flashed around upon her companions. Rose—pale, trembling, almost unearthly in a beauty from which everything earthly and material seemed to have been purged away—stood extending her hands to the wanderer, her only expression one of profound thanksgiving for his return.