‘I shall die if I am left alone here!’ cried Lady Monson. ‘I believed that that flash just now had struck me blind.’
‘Keep hold of my arm, Laura,’ said I, ‘and walk as if the deck were filled with snakes.’
We cautiously stepped the wild growths of the planks, rendered as dangerous as the holes outside of the rocks by the dusk, and approached Lady Monson.
‘May I conduct you to the cabin?’ said I.
‘I would rather remain here,’ she answered; but there was no longer the old note of imperious determination in her voice. In fact it was easy to see that she did not care to be alone when the lightning was fierce and when a heavy storm of wet and wind was threatened.
‘Shall we take in this here sail, sir?’ cried Finn from the other side of the deck, ‘before it’s blown away?’
‘No; keep all fast, Finn,’ said I; ‘her ladyship desires to remain here.’
‘Are you going to stop with me, Laura?’ said Lady Monson.
‘Suffer me to answer for Miss Jennings,’ I exclaimed. ‘I make myself answerable for her health and comfort. I could not endure that she should be exposed when there is a safe and dry shelter within a biscuit-toss of us.’
Just then was a blinding leap of lightning; the electric spark seemed to flash sheer from the western confines to the eastern star, scoring the black firmament with a line of fire that was like the splitting of it. A mighty blast of thunder followed.