As she sat there in her dreaming mood all the days of the past came back to her, with a clearness she had never before known. All the pleasant hours returned to her with even a more intense happiness than she had felt at first. For out of the distance of these Fortunate Islands the ghosts of the blessed departed hours came and moved before her, looking into her face with their own sweet pale faces; thus she passed from a waking dream into a dream of sleep as she lay upon her sofa, and the ghost shapes continued to float before her. The fatigue of the day, the darkness of the cabin, and the monotonous washing of the ripples against the side of the ship, had brought on her sleep before she had got into her berth. With a sudden start she awoke and sprang to her feet in instantaneous consciousness, for the monotony of the washing waves was broken by a sound that was strange and startling to her ears--the sound of something hard tapping at irregular intervals upon the side of the ship just at her ear. She ran over to the cabin port and looked out fearfully--looked out and gave a cry of terror, for beneath her--out from those gray waters there glanced up to her in speechless agony the white face of a man; she saw it but for a moment, then it seemed to be swept away from her and swallowed up in the darkness of the deep waters. CHAPTER XIV. ... Rashly, And praised be rashness for it.... Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark Groped I to find out them... making so bold, My fears forgetting manners. Give me leave: here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good. Let us know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well ... and that should learn us There's a divinity that shapes our ends Rough-hew them how we will.--_Hamlet._ |A SINGLE cry of terror was all that Daireen uttered as she fell back upon her berth. An instant more and she was standing with white lips, and hands that were untrembling as the rigid hand of a dead person. She knew what was to be done as plainly as if she saw everything in a picture. She rushed into the saloon and mounted the companion to the deck. There sat the little group astern just as she had seen them an hour before, only that the doctor had fallen asleep under the influence of one of the less pointed of the major's stories. “God bless my soul!” cried the major, as the girl clutched the back of his chair. “Good heavens, Miss Gerald, what is the matter?” said Harwood, leaping to his feet. She pointed to the white wake of the ship. “There--there,” she whispered--“a man--drowning--clinging to something--a wreck--I saw him!” “Dear me! dear me!” said the major, in a tone of relief, and with a breath of a smile.