“No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head.”
“We speak not of our women in words like those,” said the nurse, severely; “you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow.”
Stanford smiled. “Words matter little,” he said.
“We must be temperate in speech,” replied the nurse.
“We may be temperate without, being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow, indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought that they—but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you happen to know if any others were saved?”
“I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned.”
Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his pillow.
“Leave the room,” he cried, feebly, “Leave me—leave me.” He turned his face toward the wall, while the woman left as silently as she had entered.
When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw he was going to recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of the street—a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in the houses.
“I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics,” he said to himself. “I wonder to what country these people belong—either to England or the United States, I imagine—yet in all my travels I never heard of such a community.”