"Its name is 'dreamland'!" finished Ruth, with a light laugh. "And never will you arrive at your voyage's end, friend Martin, for 'dreamland' is always over the horizon."
She looked directly into Martin's eyes; the brief dusk was upon them, and her face was a soft, wavering outline, but her eyes were aglow with the gleam that set Martin's blood afire. Her eyes seemed to bear a message from the Ruth that lived below the surface Ruth—from the newly stirring woman beneath the girlish breast.
It was a challenge, that brief glance. It made Martin catch his breath. He choked upon the words that tried tumultuously to burst from his lips.
"Oh, Ruth, let me tell you—" he commenced.
Her laugh interrupted him again, and the eyes he looked into were again the merry, teasing eyes of his comrade. With her next words she wilfully misunderstood him and his allusion concerning the sunset.
"Indeed, Martin, that cloud the sunset lightened is shaped nothing like Fire Mountain, which is a very gloomy looking place, and one I should not like to take up residence in. And no bright meadows surround it—only the gray, foggy sea. Hardly a land of happiness. Though, indeed, if we salvage that treasure, we will have the means, each of us, to buy the happiness money provides."
"Confound Fire Mountain and its treasure!" exclaimed Martin. "You know I didn't mean that, Ruth! I was talking figuratively, poetically, the way Little Billy talks. I meant just you and I, and that sunset was the symbol of our love."
But he was talking to the air. Ruth was speeding aft, her light laughter rippling behind her.
Another night, when the brig was near the southern limit of her long traverse, they stood in the shadow, at the break of the poop, and together scanned the splendid sky. Ruth was the teacher; she knew each blazing constellation, and she pointed them out for Martin's benefit. But Martin, it must be admitted, was more interested by the pure profile revealed by a slanting moonbeam than by the details of astronomy and his mumbled, half-conscious replies revealed his inattention.
After a while, she gave over the lesson, and they stood silent, side by side, leaning on the rail, captivated by the witchery of the tropic night.