o the shore.
But beyond this we heard nothing, though the air was so still, now that
the screaming of the birds had died away, that we felt sure that we must
hear the sound of any advance in force.

Lancelot whispered to me that it was possible that they might put off
their assault until daybreak. They were in this predicament, that if
they lit any of the lights which we made no doubt they carried, in order
to ascertain the plight that they were in, they would make themselves
the targets for our muskets. But the one thing certain was that, under
the control of a man like Jensen, they would most certainly not rest
till they tried to get the better of us.

That Jensen himself was not among the disabled we felt confident, for
Lancelot, who had a fine ear, averred that he could distinguish the
sound of Jensen's voice down on the beach, which afterward proved to be
so, for Jensen, unable to distinguish in the darkness the amount of
injury that his army had sustained, was calling over from memory the
name of each man of his gang. Every pirate who answered to his name
stated the nature of his wounds, if he had any. Those who made no answer
Jensen counted for lost, and of these latter there were no less than
three.

There was something terrible in the sense of a darkness that was
swarming with enemies. We were not wholly in obscurity inside our
enclosure, for we had a couple of the boat's lanterns, which shed enough
light to enable us to see each other, and to look to our weapons,
without allowing any appreciable light to escape between the timbers of
our fortification. Soon all our muskets were loaded again. Lancelot
appointed one of the men who came to us on the raft, and who was still
too weak for active service, as a loader of guns, that in case of
attack we could keep up a steady firing. Happily for us, our supply of
ammunition was tolerably large.

For some time, however, we were left in peace. The blackness upon which
the pirates had counted as an advantage had proved their bane. So there
was nothing for them to do but to wait with what patience they could for
the dawn.

The dawn did come at last, and I never watched its coming with more
anxiety. Often and often in those days when I believed myself to be
fathom-deep in love I used to lie awake on my bed and watch the dawn
filling the sky, and find in its sadness a kind of solace for mine own.
For a sick spirit there is always something sad about the breaking of
th