nearer to her, and laid one hand upon the skirt of her wet
robe. "I am here, close to you, madam," he said; "there can nothing harm
you."

He began to speak quietly and naturally of this and that, of what they
should do when the day broke, of Regulus's wound, of the storm, of the
great sea and its perils. He told her something of these latter, for he
knew the sea; piteous tales of forlorn wrecks, brave tales of dangers
faced and overcome, of heroic endurance and heroic rescue. He told her
tales of a wild, rockbound Devonshire coast with its scattered fisher
villages; of a hidden cave, the resort of a band of desperadoes, half
smugglers, half pirates, wholly villains; of how this cave had been long
and vainly searched for by the authorities; of how, one night, a boy
climbed down a great precipice, scaring the seafowl from their nests,
and lighted upon this cavern with the smugglers in it, and in their
midst a defenseless prisoner whom they were about to murder. How he had
shouted and made wailing, outlandish noises, and had sent rocks hurtling
down the cliffs, until the wretches thought that all the goblins of
land and sea were upon them, and rushed from the cavern, leaving their
work undone. Whereupon, the boy reclimbed the cliff, and hastening to
the nearest village, roused the inhabitants, who hurried to their boats,
and descending upon the long-sought-for cave, surprised the smugglers,
cut them down to a man, and rescued the prisoner.

The man who told these things told them well. The wild tales ran like a
strain of sombre music through the night. His audience of one forgot her
terror and weariness, and listened with eager interest.

"Well--" she said, as he paused.

"That is all. The ruffians were all killed and the prisoner rescued."

"And the boy?"

"Oh, the boy! He went back to his books."

"Did you know him?"

"Yes, I knew him. See, madam, it has quite cleared. How the moon whitens
those leaping waves!"

"Yes, it is beautiful. I am glad the prisoner escaped. Was he a
fisherman?"

"No; an officer of the Excise--a gallant man, with a wife and many
children. Yes, I suppose he prized life."

"And I am glad that the smugglers were all killed."

Landless smiled. "Life to them was sweet, too, perhaps."

"I do not care. They were wicked men who deserved to die. They had
murdered and robbed. They were criminals--"

She stopped short, and her face turned from white to red and then to
white again, and he