olour with
all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all
their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his
heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
as though a knife had been plunged into his body.

"My God!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"

Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the
creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which
tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate
sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went
down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.

CHAPTER XII

The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of
fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank
suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning
orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upwa