Engrossed with such thoughts, the Marquise was less alive than usual to surrounding impressions. Presently a deep groan, forced from her companion by combined pain and weakness, against which the sufferer could no longer hold out, roused her to a sense of her situation, which was indeed sufficiently precarious to have warranted much anxiety and alarm. Hastening to his side, she was shocked to perceive that Bottle-Jack had sunk to the ground, and was now endeavouring ineffectually to support himself on his knees in an attitude of vigilance and defence. The Captain’s pistols lay beside him, and he carried his own in each hand, but his glazing eye and fading colour showed that the weapons could be but of little service, and the time seemed fast approaching when the old sailor should be relieved from his duty by an order against which there was no appeal. The Marquise had scarcely listened to the words while he spoke them, but they came back now, and she understood what he meant when he told her that, if she pleased, “he would keep _his_ watch first.” She looked around and shuddered. It was, indeed, a cheerless position enough. The moon was sinking, and that darkest hour of the night approached which is followed by dawn, just as sorrow is succeeded by consolation, and death by immortality. The breeze struck damp and chill on her unprotected neck and bosom, for there had been no time to think of cloaks or shawls when she escaped, nor was the air sufficiently cold before midnight to remind her of such precautions. The surrounding jungle stirred and sighed faintly, yet sadly, in the night air. The waters of the deep lagoon, now darkening with a darkening sky, lapped drearily against their bank. Other noises were there none, for the rioters seemed to have turned back from the resistance offered by Slap-Jack with his comrades, and to have abandoned for the present their search in that direction. The seamen who guarded the defile were peering stealthily into the gloom, not a man relaxing in his vigilance, not a man stirring on his post. The only sounds that broke her solitude were the restless movements of Bottle-Jack, and the groans that would not be suppressed. It was no wonder the Marquise shuddered. She stooped over the old seaman and took his coarse, heavy hand in hers. Even at such an extremity, Bottle-Jack seemed conscious of the contrast, and touched it delicately, like some precious and fragile piece of porcelain. “I fear you are hurt,” said she, in his own language, which she spoke with the measured accent of her countrywomen. “Tell me what it is; I am not a bad doctor myself.”