"They don't have days down here," she evaded. "I know. But reckoning our way--five days?" "Nearer ten, Allan." "_What?_ But then--" The girl withdrew her hand from him and arose. "I see it's no use, Allan," she said decisively. "So long as I stay with you you'll ask questions and excite yourself. I'm going! Then you'll _have_ to keep still!" "Beta! Beta!" he implored. "I'll be good! Don't leave me--you _mustn't!_" "All right; but if you ask me another question, a single one, mind, I'll truly go!" "Just give me your hand, girlie, that's all! Come here--sit down beside me again--so!" He turned on his side, on the rude couch of coarse brown fabric stuffed with dried seaweed, laid his hollow cheek upon her hand, and gave a deep sigh. "Now, I'm off," he murmured. "Only, don't leave me, Beta!" For half an hour after his deep, slow breathing told that the wounded man was sleeping soundly--half an hour as time was measured where the sun shone, for down in the black depths of the abyss all such divisions were as naught, Beatrice sat lovingly and tenderly beside the primitive bed. Her right palm beneath his face, she stroked his long hair and his wan cheek with her other hand; and now she smiled with pride and reminiscence, now a grave, troubled look crossed her features. The light, a fiber wick burning in a stone cup of oil upon a stone-slab table in the center of the hut, "uttered unsteadily, casting huge and dancing shadows up the black walls. "Oh, my beloved!" whispered the girl, and bent above him till the loosened sheaves of her hair swept his face. "My love! Only for you, where should I be now? With you, how could I be afraid? And yet--" She turned at a sound from a narrow door opposite the larger one that gave upon the plaza, a door, like the other, closed by a heavy curtain platted of seaweed. There, holding the curtain back, stood the blind patriarch. His hut, larger than most in the strange village, boasted two rooms. Now from the inner one, where he had been resting, he came to speak with Beatrice. "Peace, daughter!" said the old man. "Peace be unto you. He sleeps?" "Yes, father. He's much better now, I think. His constitution is simply marvelous." "Verily, he is strong. But far stronger are those terrible and wonderful weapons of yours! If our Folk only had such!" "You're better off without them. But of course, if you want to understand them, he can explain them in due time. Those, and endless other things!" "I believe that is truth." The patriarch advanced into the room, and for a minute stood by the bedside with venerable dignity. "The traditions, I remember, tell of so many strange matters. I shall know them, every one. All in time, all in time!" "Your simple medicines, down here, are wonderful," said the girl admiringly. "What did you put into that draught I gave him to make him sleep this way?"