“‘She won’t come about!’
“‘She acts as if she were towing something, were tied to something!’
“‘What’s that big rock behind there? Who the devil is this? And how the devil did he get here?’
“In the midst of these excited and alarmed exclamations came the solemn, portentous voice of the camel tolling out in the unnatural night the tocsin of the approaching hurricane.
“‘It’s the Dago!’ cried Gannett, examining me by the fleeting flash of a match. ‘It’s his damned camel towing behind that won’t let us come about. Pitch him overboard!’
“‘Oh, save me!’ appealed Mildred.
“There she had been, sitting just in front of me and I hadn’t known it was she. It was not strange that she had faith that I who had arrived could also depart.
“‘Selim,’ I called, pulling the camel to the boat. I had never had a name for him before, but it was high time he had one, so now I named him. ‘Selim,’ and there the faithful beast was and with Mildred in my arms, I scrambled on to his back and urged him toward the rift in the wall of cliff.
“As if I had spurned it with my foot, the boat sprang away behind us, a sudden rushing blast filling her sails and laying her almost over, and then she was out of our sight, into the teeth of the tempest, yelling, screaming, howling with a hundred voices as it darted from the sky and laid flat the waves and then hurled them up in a mass of stinging spray.
“In fond anticipation, I had dwelt upon the homeward ride with Mildred. A-camelback, I was, as it were, upon my native heath, master of myself, assured, and at ease. I had planned to tell her of my love, plead my cause with Oriental fervor and imagery, but before we reached shore the tempest was so loud that she could not have heard me unless I had shouted, and I had no mind to bawl my love. Worse still, when once we were going across the wind and later into it, I could not open my mouth at all. We reached the hotel and on its lee side I lifted her down to the topmost of the piazza steps. I determined not be delayed longer. If ever there was to be a propitious occasion, it was now when I had rescued her from encompassing peril. I retained hold of her hand. She gave me a glance in which was at least gratitude, and I dared hope, something more, and I was about to make my declaration, when she made a little step, her right foot almost sunk under her and she gave an agonized cry and hobbling, limping, hopping on one foot, passed from me across the piazza to the stairs leading to the second story, whither she ascended upon her hands and knees.