But though she spoke thus cheerfully her heart was heavy within her; and when, in the night, she woke to hear Claude coughing as he had done on the beach, she knew that the end must be near. In the morning, a greater sorrow awaited her. She found him weak, worn, and feverish, having spent a sleepless night. When he attempted to build the fire, which had gone out during the night, as he was placing a heavy log upon the dry branches, he fell forward on his face, and would have been burnt by the fire he had just kindled but that Marguerite, springing to his side, bore him bodily to the hut. As she laid him down, she saw that her arm was dyed with blood.
Could the end have come already? He was bleeding at the mouth, and she knew that his lungs were affected. She had little experience or knowledge about sickness of any kind, and at first she thought he was dead. But she bravely did what she could to restore him, and was soon rewarded by seeing the languid eyes open with a half-dreamy stare. The minutes seemed like hours before he showed any further signs of regaining consciousness, and it was to her as the voice of God when his lips parted, and he murmured her name. His hand pressed hers tenderly, lovingly, despairingly. He had had a glimpse of death, and, as he awoke from his swoon, his first thought was of the horrors she would endure till she should follow him. His strength slowly returned, and by noon he was able to sit propped up in the door of the hut, through which the warm sunshine streamed brightly.
"How cold it has become," he said suddenly, with a shiver.
"Let me wrap this blanket about you, dearest. You are weak still, but a little rest will make you strong."
"Your words would drive away any chill breath," he said tenderly, as she arranged the covering about him. "But surely it is strange, with that warm sun streaming down, that the gentle wind should so soon have cooled the air. A moment ago it was as warm as the summer breezes of France. But what means that shouting?"
"I can hear naught," said Marguerite, her heart sinking within her as she became convinced that Claude's attack had left him delirious.
But suddenly she, too, held up her warm hand in the wind. It had indeed grown colder, although the restless ocean seemed to wear a calmer smile than it had done in the early morning. Her ear, too, caught an unwonted sound; it was the screaming of innumerable sea-birds; and as they drew nearer, the loud flapping of their wings resounded through the island. What could their strange appearance mean? While she thus questioned, a sudden coughing told her that the keen blast which had swept across them had left Claude weakened. She went to him, drew him within doors, and wrapped him warmly in the thickest coverings they had; then she sat anxiously by his side. The wind grew colder, and the screaming of birds louder. Both feared some dire calamity—they knew not what. At last a dull rumbling was heard, and then a roaring, a bellowing, a grinding, a crashing, and the sudden falling of a mighty burden, as if a mountain peak had toppled over on their island, which shook and vibrated as with an earthquake.
The two held each other's hands and waited.
"Could it be a ship?" exclaimed Marguerite, suddenly.