For a moment, so poignant in its revelation of a divine possibility as to stop her heart while it lasted, Sylvia fancied that he seemed disappointed at her abrupt disposal of the notion that he might have loved her. But even as the thought was born it died upon his offer of another piece of Turkish-delight and of his saying: "I think it's time for the eighth piece each." So that was the calculation he had been making, unless, indeed, their proximity and solitude through this long day in the face of danger had induced in him a sentimental desire to express an affection born of a conventional instinct to accord with favoring circumstance, bred of a kind of pity for a wasted situation. If that were so, she must be more than ever careful of her pride; and for the rest of the day she kept the conversation to politics, forcing it away from any topic that in the least concerned them personally. A night of intense blackness and heavy rain succeeded that long day in the oleander thicket. Moonrise could not be expected by their reckoning much before three in the morning. The wet hours dragged so interminably that prudence was sacrificed to a longing for action; feeling that it was impossible to lie here any longer, sodden, hungry, and apprehensive, they decided to go down to the beach and strike the first match at midnight, and, notwithstanding the risk, to strike matches every half-hour. The first match evoked no response; but the plash of the little waves broke the monotony of the rain, and the sand, wet though it was, came as a relief after the slime in which they had been lying for eighteen hours. The second match gained no answering signal; neither did the third nor the fourth. They consoled themselves by whispering that Yanni had arranged his rescue for the hour before moonrise. The fifth and sixth matches flamed and went out in dreary ineffectiveness; so thick was the darkness over the sea it began to seem unimaginable for anything to happen out there. Suddenly Michael whispered that he could hear the clumping of oars, and struck the seventh match. There was silence; then the oars definitely grew louder; a faint whistle came over the water: the darkness before them became tremulous with a hint of life, and their straining eyes tried to fancy the outline of a boat standing off from the shore. Presently low voices were audible; then the noise of a falling plank and a hurried oath for some one's clumsiness; a little boat grounded, and Yanni jumped out. "Quick!" he breathed. "I believe I heard footsteps coming right down to the shore." They pushed off the boat; and when they were about twenty strokes from the beach, what seemed after so much whispering and stillness a demoniac shout rent the darkness inland. Yanni and the fishermen beside him pulled now without regard for the noise of the oars; they could hear the sound of people's sliding down the cliff; there were more shouts, and a rifle flashed.