Though strange, their situation seemed profoundly simple,--a sudden, unforeseen, yet natural welding of present to past adventure. They were afloat together, in the same wide concealment, almost as though the same obscurity, without interval, had but changed from white to black. So welcome was this conjoining magic that, for the moment, they could forget its cause. Suddenly, however, the sound which they followed came to an end. “They heard us,” whispered the girl. Miles, with a like thought, stopped rowing. Still, their voices had been quiet as their oars. Surely the two men had not--yet why should they drift in mid-stream? He pondered, listening; and then first came the memory of Habakkuk’s light, seen from the high woods. “The island. They’re landing.” Even as he whispered they heard, well off their port bow, the crash of splintering beach ice. “The lower end.” He swung the boat’s nose up river, and, yielding to the flood-tide, made for the head of the island. Gradually the loom of shore spread round and above them, deepening the night. As if a shadow had solidified, the unseen beach grated softly beneath their bow. “Sand!” said Miles. “A piece of luck.” With one hand on his shoulder, she vaulted lightly ashore. They lifted the boat beyond reach of tide, climbed a shelving slant that rose to the foot of the main ledge, and groped along an impending granite wall, which the river had deeply gnawed and under-cut, as cattle ravage a haystack. A cleft, however, at last gave access; and grasping each other timorously, struggling together, they gained the upper level. Here the north wind had swept the beak of the island clear; for scrubby bushes--lambkill, perhaps, or sweet-fern, or blueberry--parted rustling underfoot, with the frailest odor of dried herbs. Then evergreens compassed all about, breast-high, in snow and darkness. They now waded so heavily in drifts, through a grove so deeply smothered, that their venture began to appear both difficult and harebrained. Its impulse was rapidly cooling, when a sudden light swung through the firs ahead, and turned the thicket into a reel of ponderous shadows, dizzily whirling upward. This motion ceased. The snow-fronds gleamed in swollen, billowy outlines. Among these the two companions peered. They had struck through the annular grove of the island, and were looking into the open centre. A white drift, crested like a wave, shone behind a lantern set upon bare ground. Tugging sounds and a click of metal rose close at hand, behind a screen of boughs. A man grunted angrily. “There, by Godfrey! Told ye so! I bust the lock!” “What odds?” replied the cheerful voice of Tony. “Don’t need it. Rip it off!” “Do your own rippin’! My fingers ain’t nobody’s monkey-wrench.” “No, they’d rather pick pockets. Stand clear, then.” Something snapped. “There, my skulker! Almost took muscle, didn’t it?” “Don’t you call me no names!” began Abram loudly.