"Some Daphne of the Islands, she must have been, since Pere Rabeaut does not seem designed to father a sunset.... It's my first glimpse of Soronia this voyage. She was beautiful in a girlish way last year.... She's in love, or she couldn't glow like that. I met Pere Rabeaut down in the city----" Charter arose. "Perhaps the lover is across the court. I heard a whispering through the bird-songs--and one could not fail to note how she hurried back.... I must go on. The water is no better here than elsewhere." "But the wine is," said Peter Stock. "Wait luncheon for me at the _Palms_.... By the way, how'd you like to take a little cruise--feel the _Saragossa_ under you, running like a scared deer to hitch herself to the solid old Horn, built of rock and sealed with icebergs----" "A clean thought, in this air--but the eventualities here attract. When Father Fontanel grows afraid for the city, well, it may not be scientific, but it's ominous.... I wanted to ask if it ever occurred to you that even the _Morne d'Orange_ might fall into the sweeping range of Pelée's guns?" "In other words--if the mountain won't recede from Miss Wyndam, we'd better snatch up Miss Wyndam and make a getaway from the mountain?" From far within a "Yea" was acclaimed, yet there was a sullen Charter integrity which had given its word to Skylark, and feared the test of being shut on the same ship with a woman who endowed him with such power that he felt potent to go to the craters and remonstrate with the Monster. "It might be well to ask her," Charter replied gloomily, "but I'm rather absorbed in the action here and Father Fontanel's work. I want to look at the craters from behind----" "Twice you've said that," said Peter Stock, "and each time it reminds me that I'm old, yet there's a lure about it. I'm thinking----" Their heads were together at the little round window for the mountain had rumbled again, and they stared beyond the city into the ashen shroud. "Grand old martyr," Charter muttered, "hang on, hang on!... The flag of truce still flies." * * * * *