Silence fell upon them. The twilight was deepening, the breeze was chill. Armorel felt that the young man beside her was shivering—perhaps with the cold. He looked across the dark water and gasped: 'We are coming up,' he said, 'out of the gates of death and the jaws of hell. Strange! to have been so near unto dying. Five minutes more, and there would have been an end, and two more men would have been created for no other purpose but to be drowned.'
Armorel made no reply. The oars kept dipping, dipping, evenly and steadily. Across the waters on either hand flashed lights: St. Agnes and the Bishop from the south—they are white lights; and from the north the crimson splendour of Round Island: the wind was dropping, and there was a little phosphorescence on the water, which gleamed along the blade of the oar.
In half an hour the boat rounded the new pier, and they were in the harbour of Hugh Town at the foot of the landing steps.
'Now,' said Armorel, 'you had better get home as fast as you can and have some supper.'
'Why,' cried the artist, realising the fact for the first time, 'you are bare-headed! You will kill yourself.'
'I am used to going about bare-headed. I shall come to no harm. Now go and get some food.'
'And you?' The young man stood on the stepping-stones ready to mount.
'We shall put up the sail and get back to Samson in twenty minutes. There is breeze enough for that.'
'Will you tell us,' said the artist, 'before you go—to whom we are indebted for our very lives?'
'My name is Armorel.'