ne, gave him a real start, so strung were
his nerves with excitement and fatigue. But the object of his search
was a prosaic one enough. He explored every room, every cupboard, the
store closet, everything. There were a few old tins of preserved
salmon, and a box or two of sardines, half a sack of mildewed flour, and
a string of onions. There were utensils of various kinds, all old and
worthless, heaped among empty mustard tins and glass bottles of all
sorts and sizes. But of what he sought, there was none.

"I'm certain I'd give a sovereign at this moment for a good glass of
grog!" he told himself. "However, it isn't to be had, and I was in lack
to drop in here in the fruit season. Those peaches were A1. I think
I'll go and talk to them again."

But, simultaneously with this determination, a great drowsiness began to
come over him. In one of the front rooms, among the heavier furniture
which had been left, was a coach, large and massive, and withal
comfortable; just the very coach to invite a wearied and exhausted man.
So, fixing the shatters so as to admit a crack of air, he flung himself
upon the coach, and was sound asleep as soon as he touched it.

Now there came into Roden's slumbers, at first dead and dreamless, a
kind of restful consciousness as languorously soothing as at that hoar
on the night after his mishap, when Mona had sat at his bed head,
charming him off to sleep by the mere touch of her hand upon his
forehead, by the soft intonation of her love-thrilled voice at his ear.
Surely, her presence was with him now, here in this lonely deserted
dwelling in the heart of the hostile country. He had but to reach forth
his hand and touch her. Once more the charm availed, and again he sank
into the unconsciousness of a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

Soon, he stirred again in his sleep, and muttered uneasily. Her face
was before him once more, and on it was imprinted that same expression
of love and agony and despair as he had seen there when he hung over
that grisly abyss, in weakness and excruciating pain; her hand alone
holding him up from the dreadful death. Some mysterious and awful peril
seemed to be rolling in upon him now, holding him spellbound and
powerless to move. Now, as then, she was striving to drag him into
safety, but futilely. He had no power over himself. The weight which
oppressed him was terrible. Then her face vanished in a whirl of
despairing horror. Once more all was a b