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ladies sang their breeziest sea-songs to cheer them at the work. The sail-boat rounded a curve and was almost out of sight. "Oars never caught sails yet," muttered St. George, and he put his boat to the shore. "There, Murray, try your lazy mettle, and take my oar. As for me, I'm off,"--and he sprang upon the bank, sending the boat spinning off into the current again from his foot. In ten minutes a horseman went galloping by on the high-road skirting the shore, with a pace like that of the Spectre of the Storm. "Now, Mr. Marlboro'," said Eloise, "shall we not turn back, victorious?" "Turn?" said Marlboro', shaking loose another fold of the linen. "I never turn! Look your last on the tiny tribe,--we shall see them no more!" Eloise sprang to her feet. He caught her hand and replaced her; his face was so white that it shone, there was a wild glitter in his eye, and the smile that brooded over her had something in it absolutely terrific. "We have gone far enough," said Eloise, resolutely. "I wish to rejoin my friends." "You are with me!" said Marlboro', proudly. She was afraid to say another word, for to oppose him now in his exultant rage might only work the mood to frenzy. The creek had widened almost to a river,--the sea was close at hand, with its great tumbling surf. She looked at the horizon and the hill for help, but none came; destruction was before them, and on they flew. Marlboro' stood now, and steadied the tiller with his foot. "This is motion!" said he. "We fly upon the wings of the wind! The viewless wind comes roaring out of the black region of the East, it fills the high heaven, it roars on to the uttermost undulation of the atmosphere, and we are a part of it! We are only a mote upon its breath, a dust-atom driven before it, Eloise,--and yet one great happiness is greater than it, drowns it in a vaster flood of viewless power, can whisper to it calm!" How should Eloise contradict him? With such rude awakening, he might only snatch her in his arms and plunge down to death. Perhaps he half divined the fear. "Yes, Eloise," he said. "They are both here, life and death, at our beck! I can take you to my heart, one instant the tides divide, then they close above us, and you are mine for ever and ever and only,--sealed mine beneath all this crystal sphere of the waters! We hear the gentle lapping of the ripples on the shore, we hear the tones of evening-bells swim out and melt above us, we
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