Rose opened her eyes. She looked straight in his, and with a pleasant smile. It was an instant before she was fully conscious of the situation--so sweet an instant! Then she was herself, and sprang to her feet.
"We must run! But where? How wrong of me to sleep!" It was Joseph who spoke. "Ha! down yonder on the beach I see a boat. We may find shelter for you near there."
The lightning flashed incessantly. The air quivered with the resounding thunderclaps succeeding one another without interval or pause. The rain streamed down. The windows of heaven were opened, and the waters of the firmament descended in sheets, as if to overwhelm the earth.
He took her hand, and they hurried along the sands towards the boat, as quickly as they could, by the gleam of the intermittent flashes, which blinded while they lasted, and yet made the intervals between seem dark as night by contrast.
A halloo reached them as they stumbled on, and made them turn aside, where, in a sheltered corner, stood the fishermen's hut. They were inside in a moment, still dazed and panting from the buffeting storm, and streaming with rain, though the time they had been exposed to it was shorter than it has taken to relate. Grateful for the shelter, they recognised that it was Blount and Wilkie who had hailed them, while Margaret stood within, coaxing some dying embers into flame with the aid of a fan and some fresh fuel, preparatory to drying herself; for she too had been caught in the rain, though she had not been drenched as Rose was. The men, watching the storm from the open door, had seen the others hurrying by, and had hailed them to the shelter they would otherwise have missed.
"You?" cried Walter Blount, in a tone which betrayed perhaps a shade of disappointment as well as the natural surprise. He had known of the expedition to Fessenden's Island, and had sailed thither in hopes of what would scarcely be an accidental meeting, and he had been fortunate beyond his expectation. When the whistle of the steamer had sounded, he had heard, but Margaret had taken no heed, and Wilkie in his discomfiture, had seemingly not observed. It would have been gratuitous on his part, he thought, to disturb the harmony and precipitate a parting, seeing that he had a boat of his own, in which they could return at any time. If Wilkie would have gone, it would have been better still, only that Margaret must have accompanied him; wherefore he exerted himself to brighten the talk, and keep their thoughts as far as possible from the subject of the steamer; and to his own surprise he succeeded, for he could not understand why "that fellow Wilkie" should feel engrossed.
And perhaps the "fellow" was not, but only mortified and squelched at the unwonted neglect into which he, who had come to look on himself as an invincible lady-killer, had fallen. Anything seemed better to him than the shame of returning to the steamer alone. How would he feel when asked what he had done with his companion? And, foolishly, he had a misgiving that if he proposed to return, she would not accompany him. Her attention was now transferred entirely to the rival, and he found himself nowhere. But he would stick to her like a burr. One can sometimes spoil a game which one cannot join in. He was sure the rival wished him away; and that was reason enough for sticking fast and showing no sign. By-and-by, when the other was gone, the lady would be more amenable to his displeasure, and then would be his time to show it.
As time wore on, the sky grew dark, and presently the storm was upon them. They retreated to the hut, and then Margaret remembered about the steamboat. Wilkie looked at his watch, and said they had outstayed their time; but the deluge of rain made it impossible now to set out on the return. Blount's man was despatched to warn the skipper, and they resigned themselves to await the subsidence of the storm. The last users of the hut had left a fire behind them, of which a coal or two still smouldered in the ashes; and Margaret, uneasy at the account she should have to render by-and-by, made busy in rekindling the blaze, rather than resign herself to forebodings of a maternal lecture.
"You?" was Blount's exclamation, repeated a second time, when the newcomers entered the hut; and the tone of disappointment verged closely on disgust. Joseph Naylor was his friend, but at that moment he would have preferred almost any other intruder. He was his friend, but he was also Margaret's uncle, and therefore the most unwelcome man who could have appeared. Standing by the open door and listening to the thunder and the falling rain, after despatching his boatman to the steamer, he had been building himself a castle in the air. The steamboat would be gone when his messenger reached the landing. The man, while obeying, had assured him of that, as it was only at the height of the tide that she was able to approach the island. The steamboat being gone, Margaret must take passage back with him in his sail-boat. Landed at Lippenstock together, it would not be hard to give Wilkie the slip; and then, behind a lively trotter, they could start for parts unknown. It would be days before the family could overtake them. Ere then they would be man and wife, and the family would gladly make the best of what it could no longer prevent. He had never known Margaret so soft and sweetly amenable to influence as she had been these last two hours. Fortune seemed to have softened her mood on purpose to assist him. He felt sure he could persuade her; and here, at the very turning-point of his fate, appeared uncle Joseph, "a god out of a machine," to spoil all. It was unspeakably grievous.
Wilkie cried "You!" at the same moment as Walter; but the tone was different. There was hope and relief in both his face and voice, in marked contrast with the other. Consolation, hope, indemnity for slights, all shone before his view in the appearance of Rose Hillyard. She was escorted, to be sure, but only by "old Naylor"--a man half as old again as himself, and not nearly so polished or agreeable. "The Hillyard" had often struck him as in many respects superior to Margaret Naylor. At the worst, to form one in a quintet could not but be pleasanter than he had found the part of supernumerary in a trio. He positively beamed upon the newcomers, and would willingly have heaped wood on the fire, and even assisted Rose to make herself comfortable; but she assured him that Margaret Naylor and herself could do everything, and he must rejoin the men in the porch without, or, like Peeping Tom of Coventry, he might find himself struck blind on the spot.