had done; for the
passionate desire of life was alight in his eyes. What right had I to
make him share my fate? My deep joy was suddenly numbed. I was a
murderess!

I handed him the remaining one, and pretended to feel about in the
bottom of the boat. In that moment I recovered myself.

"There is only one here," I announced calmly.

"Impossible!" he cried. "I saw the pair laid out myself."

He dropped on his knee and felt anxiously around. Then he struck a
match; with the same result. The oar was gone.

He knew then that my words were true, and he came over to my side with a
great despair in his dark eyes.

"Margharita!" he cried, taking me into his arms, "there is death before
us, and it is I who have brought it upon you. Oh, my love, my love!"

His kisses fell upon my lips, and my head fell upon his shoulder. Then I
drew a sigh of deep content, and I felt that I had done well.

"I do not mind," I whispered softly. "Let us stay like this. I am
happy."

"My darling!"

CHAPTER XXX

THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE

To desire death is to live, and to desire life is to die. It is the
mockery of human existence, the experience of all. I had willed to die
at that moment, without further speech or opportunity for thought, and
death seemed to have turned his back upon me.

We drifted on, tossed high and low by the tall waves which rose around
us like black shadows, threatening destruction at every moment. Often
when we had seen one towering above us we had thought that the end had
come, and I had felt my lover's arms tighten around me, and my lips had
clung close to his. But again and again a reprieve was granted to us.
Although every timber in our frail craft shivered, we survived the shock
and drifted into smoother water.

A little before midnight the wind dropped, although there was a heavy
sea still running. Through a dimly woven mist we could see the stars
faintly shining between the masses of black clouds rolling across the
wind-swept sky. But there was no moon; nothing to show us whither we
were drifting upon the waste of waters. There was something
inexpressibly weird in that darkness. It seemed less a blank darkness
than a darkness of moving shapes and figures--a living darkness, somehow
suggesting death. It will live in my memory forever.

"Do you mind dying, Lumley?" I asked him once.

"Yes," he answered solemnly, "I do. I am just learning how sweet it
would be to live."

I held him tighter, fo