Some new mental impulse sent a rare, faint flush to the olive cheeks, and filled the uplooking clear eyes with light. This purple-clad shape, with fiery nasturtiums burning on the breast and filling the air with their peculiar odor, with the barbaric splendor of tiger lilies reflecting their lurid glare about her as she stood, bore no more likeness to the ordinary haughty woman than fire to snow. He would have liked to have crowned her with pomegranate blossoms—have dropped the silvery sheen of ermine under her feet, and have knelt there to worship.
She moved away impatiently, trailed her noiseless drapery through the room once or twice, and came back to the window, where he stood looking out. Before them lay the sea, calm in a sheen of blue, gathering faint amethystine vapors, that the sunset would light up in a miracle of bronze and purple and rose.
'You should have been with us last night! A soft, rushing south wind filled all the air with whispers, and drew up a veil of lace round the horizon, very high up in the east. Stars were few; the new moon dropped tender, faint beams down into the gray mist and grayer water that broke in ripples of white fire against the dark in the west, and mingled with the mystery in the east. I want to go again. Mr. Moore, I can manage a boat; will you go with me?'
With every minute he saw his hard-earned victory slipping away. With every minute his reeling sense lost foothold in the strange, new fascination of her excited presence. Will rallied to a last effort; he muttered some broken excuse, that she must have thought an assent, for she dropped a soft, white, clinging shawl over her shoulders, slipped the tie of the jaunty hat beneath her chin, and he could only follow her as she slid through the flicker of shade and sunshine down to the beach, where the summer sea washed lazily.
Low in the west and northwest lay piled ominous clouds; white, angry thunder heads began showing themselves.
'A grand sunset for to-night, and a shower perhaps. We shall be back before it breaks.'
A small boat—a frail thing of white and gilding—floated at anchor. Lois shook out the sail in her character of manager, seated herself at the helm, and they drifted out. No word was spoken; the light in her eyes grew brighter and brighter; the scarlet curves of her mouth more and more intense. Sitting with face turned away from the west, she did not see, as he did, the rising blackness. The wind freshened, skimming in fitful gusts over the waves, and the little craft flung off the spray like rain. Away off in the shadow of the cloud the water was black as death, a faint line of white defining its edge. Was she infatuated? As for him, he grew very calm, with a kind of desperation. Better to die so, with her face the last sight on earth—his last consciousness her clinging arms, sinking down to the dark, still caverns beneath—than to live out the life that lay before him. He leaned forward and looked over into the green depths of the sea. Sunshine still struck down in rippling lines, a golden network. Soft emerald shadows hung far down, breaking up into surface rifts of cool dimness as the waves swung over them.
Her hat had fallen back; her whole face was alive with a proud, exultant delight in the exhilarating motion. Higher and higher rose the veil of cloud, and the blackness in the water was creeping toward them. Sea birds wheeled low about them, with their peculiar quavering cry, and a low swell made itself felt. Miss Berkeley turned her head; a sudden look of affright blanched her face to deadliest whiteness. A hand's breadth of clear sky lay beneath the sun, and down after them, with the speed of a racer, came that great black wave. Before it the blue ripples shivered brightly; behind it the angry water tossed and seethed. In its bosom, lurid, phosphorescent lights seemed to flit to and fro. Its crest was ragged and white with dashes of foam. She took in the whole in a second's glance, and made a movement to bring the boat's head up to the wind. As the white face turned toward him, a quick instinct of self-preservation seized him, and he sprang up to lower the sail. Something caught the halliards. His left arm was of little service; his right hung useless at his side. She reached forward—one hand on the tiller—to help him. The rim of the storm slipped up over the sun—a sudden flaw struck them—the rudder flew sharp round, wrenched out of her slight hold—the top-heavy sail caught the full force of the blow, surged downward with a heavy lurch, and the gale was on them. A great blow, and swift darkness, then fierce currents rushing coldly past him; strange, wild sounds filling his ears; and when his vision cleared itself, he saw Lois, unimpeded by her light drapery, striking out for the sunken ledge, half a dozen yards away, over which the spray was flying furiously. He ground his teeth with impatience as his nerveless arm fell helpless; but he reached her side at last. A narrow shelf, with barely sufficient standing room for two. Great, dark waves, with strange lights flashing through them, whirled blinding deluges high above their heads, as he held her close. With the instinct of the weaker toward the stronger, she grasped and clung to him; and the fierce exultation that thrilled through his veins with actual contact, made him strong as a giant. And then, close on the gale, came the rain, beating down the waves with its heavy pour. In the thunder and tramp of the storm no human voice could have made itself audible, if speech had been needed.
The storm passed as suddenly as it had risen. Through a rift in the clouds a dash of blood-red light burst over the troubled waters, and with it a sudden quiet fell about them. They were to have their 'grand sunset' finally.
'We are too far from the mainland to reach it without help; no boats are likely to pass this way after this storm; the tide is at its lowest now; it rises high over this ledge.'