. But if it is true, _ay de mi!_ then that which I behold
is not true.'

"'Of what are you speaking?' I asked.

"'I saw an island,' she answered, as one in a dream: 'and again I see
it. It has two sharp peaks and one that would seem to be cut short.
Lawns of green climb up to the peaks between forests. There is a
ring of surf all about the shore . . . but the boat has found a
passage through . . . and you and Pete are landing . . . and--
strangest!--there is a dog leaping about on the shore to welcome
you.'

"I was silent, not caring to break in upon her happy delirium.
'But I am not there,' she whispered, almost in a moan. 'Why should a
dog be there and not I?' Still getting no word from me, she turned
her eyes full on mine and repeated the question imperatively, almost
indignantly. 'Why should it be a dog?--and not _I_, over whom you
never hated?'

"'Santa,' said I, 'if there were such an island as you see--'

"'But there _is_,' she interrupted quick as thought. 'There _is_,
and it is near, though I shall not see it, except from the boat.'

"'Say, then, that there is such an island--' said I. It was just
possible: for during the last two days we had sighted many sea-birds.

"'And near--quite near,' she insisted. 'It has groves of coco-trees,
and streams tumbling down the rocks--on which no boat can row with
men cursing in her and fighting with knives.'

"'Then you shall land on that island, O beloved!' said I, 'and we
will live on it, and love--'

"'Ah, I know what you mean! You mean as they love in heaven? Yes.'
And she added quite simply. 'I have had great trouble with men.'

"'Not exactly as in heaven,' said I, and took out from a
breast-pocket under my jumper a small flask of yellow Chartreuse,
which I had snatched up among other small belongings from my
state-room locker ten minutes before the _Eurotas_ went down.
I had nursed it with a very jealous purpose. . . . Farrell should not
slip through my fingers by dying, while I could yet force a stimulant
down his throat, to linger him out. . . . It was a tiny 'sample'
flask, and had been pressed on my acceptance, as a small flourish of
trade, by a German wine-dealer in Valparaiso. . . . And here at the
crisis, with Farrell dying at my feet, on an instant I renounced my
purpose.

"'Drink this,' I commanded Santa, 'and you shall live some hours yet.
And then, if there _be_ an island--'

"She caught at it with a delighted cry, her hands sudden