s eyes; and though you were to tell him that
the Judgment was for to-morrow, I do believe he would take his four
hours off all the same. But at Ken's Island things went differently;
and two, at least, of our party knew little sleep that night. Again and
again I turned on my bed to see Dr. Gray busy before his furnace and to
hear Peter Bligh snoring as though he'd crack the window-glass.
Nevertheless, sleep came to me slowly, and when I slept I dreamed of
the island and all the strange things which had happened there since
first we set foot upon it. Many sounds and shapes were present in my
dream, and the sweet figure of Ruth Bellenden with them all. I saw her
brave and patient in the gardens of the bungalow; the words which she
had spoken, "For God's sake come back to me!" troubled my ears like the
music of the sea. Sometimes, as dreams will, the picture was but a
vague shadow, and would send me hither and thither, now to the high
seas and an English port, again to the island and the bay wherein I
first landed. I remember, more than all, a dream which carried me to
the water's edge, with my hand in hers, and showed me a great storm and
inky clouds looming above the reef and the lightning playing vividly,
and a tide rising so swiftly that it threatened to engulf us and flood
the very land on which we stood. And then I awoke, and the dawn-light
was in the room and Dr. Gray himself stood watching by the window.

"Yes," he said, as though answering some remark of mine, "we shall have
a storm--and soon."

"You do not say so!" cried I; "why, that's my dream! I must have heard
the thunder in my sleep."

He drew the curtain back to show me the angry sky, which gave promise
of thunder and of a hurricane to follow; the air of the room seemed
heavy as that of a prison-house. In the gardens outside a shimmer of
yellow light reminded me of a London fog as once I breathed it by
Temple Bar. No longer could you distinguish the trees or the bushes or
even the mass of the woods beyond the gate. From time to time the loom
of the cloud would lift, and a beam of sunlight strike through it,
revealing a golden path and a bewitching vision of grass and roses all
drooping in the heat. Then the ray was lost again, and the yellow
vapour steamed up anew.

"A storm undoubtedly," said the doctor, at last, "and a bad one, too.
We should learn something from this, captain. Why, yes, it looks
easy--after the storm the wind."

"And the wind will c