come to Ken's Island
again," my husband says. I do not answer him. I shall never answer him
again.

May 15th.--There was a terrible storm on the island last night, and we
all went up to the gallery to see the lightning play about the heights
and run in rivulets of fire through the dark clouds above the woods. A
weird spectacle, but one I shall never forget. The very sky seemed to
burn at times. We could distinguish the heart of the thicket clearly,
and poor people running madly to and fro there as though vainly seeking
a shelter from the fire. They tell me to-day that the bungalow is
burnt; I do not know whether to be sorry or glad. I am thinking of my
friends. I am thinking of Jasper, thinking of him always.

May 16th.--I learn that there was a stranger left behind in the
bungalow, a Doctor Gray, of San Francisco. He landed with Edmond last
week, and is here for scientific reasons. My husband says that he does
not like him; but allowed him, nevertheless, to come. He was in the
bungalow making experiments when the lightning struck the house and
destroyed it. It is feared that he must have perished in the fire. My
husband tells me this to-night and is pleased to say it. But what of
Jasper, my friend; what of him?

May 16th.--I was passing through the great hall of the house to-night,
going to my bed-room, when something happened which made my very heart
stand still. I thought that I heard a sound in the shadows, and
imagining it to be one of the servants, I asked, "Who is there?" No one
answered me; and, becoming frightened, I was about to run on, when a
hand touched my own, and, turning round quickly, I found myself face to
face with Jasper himself, and knew that he had come to save me!

CHAPTER XVI

ROSAMUNDA AND THE IRON DOORS

We had no notion that the doctor had come by any serious hurt, and when
he fell in a dead faint we stood as men struck by an unseen hand. Light
we still had, for the rolling lantern continued to burn; but the wits
of us, save the wits of one, were completely gone, and three sillier
fellows never gaped about an ailing man. Dolly Venn alone--trained
ashore to aid the wounded--kept his head through the trouble and made
use of his learning. The half of a minute was not to be counted before
he had bared an ugly wound and showed us, not only a sucker still
adhering to the crimson flesh, but a great, gaping cut which the
doctor's own knife had made when he severed the fish's tentacle.

"