from wind and
rain, and a silence fell upon the party so suddenly snatched from death.
Regulus stretched himself upon the sand and pulled Darkeih down beside
him. Within a few minutes they were both asleep. The white man and woman
sat side by side without speaking, watching the storm.

By degrees it raved itself out. The rain fell in less and less volume,
the lightning became infrequent, the thunder pealed less loudly, and the
wind died from a hurricane into a breeze. In two hours' time from the
swamping of the boat the booming of the sea, and a ragged mass of cloud,
lit by an occasional flash and slowly falling away from a pale and
watery moon, were the only evidences of the tornado which had raged so
lately.

"The storm is over," said Patricia, breaking a long silence.

"Yes," said Landless. "You have nothing to fear now. Would you not like
to walk a little? You must be sadly chilled and weary with long
sitting."

"Yes, I would," she answered, with a sigh of relief. "Let us walk
towards those trees, and see if forest or water be beyond them."

He helped her to her feet, and they left the slaves sleeping upon the
ground, and moved slowly, for she was numbed with cold, towards the
fringe of pines.

Landless walked beside her without speaking. A while ago she had been
simply a woman in danger of death--something for him to protect and to
save. He had well nigh forgotten: he knew that she had quite forgotten.
She was safe now, and was become once more the lady of the manor to
whose soil he was fettered. He had remembered, and she was beginning to
remember, for presently she said timidly and sweetly, but with
condescension in her voice;--

"I am not ungrateful for all that you have done for me to-night, for
saving my life. And, trust me, you will not find your mas--my father,
ungrateful either. We will find some way to reward--"

"I neither merit nor desire reward, madam," said Landless, proudly and
sadly, "for doing but my duty as a man and as your servant."

"But--" she began kindly, when he interrupted her with sudden passion.

"Unless you wish to cut me to the heart, to bitterly humiliate me, you
will not speak of payment for any service I may have done you. I have
been a gentleman, madam. For this one night treat me as such."

"I beg your pardon," she said at once.

They reached the belt of trees and entered it. Outside, the broken
clouds had permitted an occasional gleam of watery moonshine; within the