h he drew out a volume of Dumas.
He set his lamp--a large one with double burners--on the table by the
window; and tilting his chair on the back legs, resting his shoulders
against the wall, he plunged into the mysteries of "The Forty-Five."

In a few minutes he was absorbed, as only Dumas has power to absorb
his readers. The man of action in that great romancer exercised a sort
of hypnotic power over Flint. The robust virility passed into the
sinew of his soul. The romance possessed him utterly, and left him
without even the power to criticise. It was he himself who stood in
Queen Catherine's box, and watched the spouting of Salcide's blood, as
he was drawn by the horses in the arena beneath. He sat secreted
beside Chicot in the great arm-chair in the King's bed-room. He took
part in the serenade beneath the balcony of the mysterious lady in the
Rue des Augustines. He joined the hunting of the wolf in Navarre; and
finally he had plunged into the fight between the French and Flemings,
with such intensity of reality that it scarcely surprised him to hear
the booming of a gun.

"It is those rascally Flemings!" he thought for a moment. "Up and at
them, Joyeuse!" Then suddenly he rubbed his head like one striving to
recall wandering wits. His chair came down with a crash. He took out
his watch. It marked three. Again the gun! He threw up the window. The
fog was breaking fast, and lights were visible too far out for the
the land, too near for a vessel at sea; unless, Great Heavens! it was,
it must be, a ship grounded off the Point. For an instant, the thought
of Marsden's fire-ship flashed across his mind; but his head was too
clear to be fooled in such fashion.

Banging on Brady's door, he shouted:

"A wreck off the Point! I'm going down to the shore!"

"Hold on! Wait for me, can't you?" called Brady, still half asleep.

"No; there's no time to lose. I may be of use. Come on as fast as you
can!"

As Flint rushed downstairs, he met Marsden coming out of his room,
lantern in hand. The old man's face was ashen gray, and his fingers
fumbled at the buttons of his coat.

"Did you hear it?" he said in a trembling, shaken voice. "It's the gun
of a ship in distress. Many's the time I've laid awake a-listenin' for
it when the wind was wild and the sea lashin' up over the rocks; and
now it's come on a night as ca'm as a prayer-meetin'. I told you no
good would come of our talk this evenin'."

"Is there any life-saving stati