It was just after dawn that Miss Ruth came up from her room below and found me at my lonely post on the plateau of the watch-tower rock. Dolly Venn was fast asleep by that time, and Peter Bligh and the carpenter no less willing for a spell of rest. I had sent them to their beds when it was plain to me that, whatever might come after, the night had nothing more in store for us; and though heavy with sleep myself I put it by for duty's sake. Now, I was watching all alone, my rifle between my knees and my eyes upon the breaking skies, when I heard a quick step behind me, and, turning round, I saw Miss Ruth herself, and felt her gentle hand upon my shoulder. "I couldn't sleep, Jasper," said she, a little sadly I thought. "You are not angry with me for being here, Jasper?" It blew cold with the dawn, and I was glad to see that she had wrapped her head in a warm white woollen shawl--for these little things stick in a man's memory--and that her dress was such as a woman might wear in that bleak place. She had dark rings about her eyes--which I have always said could look at you as the eyes of no other woman in all the world; and I began to think how odd it was that we two, whom fortune had cast out to this lonely rock together, should have said so little to each other, spoken such rare words since the ship put me ashore at the gate of her island home. "Miss Ruth," said I, "it's small wonder what you tell me. This night is never to be forgotten by you and I, surely. Sometimes, even now, I think that I am dreaming it all. Why, look at it. Not two months ago I was in London hiring a ship from Philips, Westbury, and Co. You, I believed, were away in the Pacific, where all things beautiful should be. I saw you, Miss Ruth, in an island home, happy and contented, as it was the wish of us all that you should be. There were never lighter hearts on a quarterdeck than those which set out to do your bidding. 'It's Miss Ruth's fancy,' we told ourselves, 'that her friends should bring a message from the West, and be ready to serve her if she has the mind to employ them.' What other need could we think of? Be sure no whisper of this devil's house or of yonder island where honest men will die to-day was heard by any man among us. We came to do your bidding as you had asked us. It was for you to say 'go' or 'stay.' We never thought what the truth would be--even now it seems to me a horrid nightmare which a man remembers when he is waking." She drew a little closer to me, and stood gazing wistfully across the westward seas, beyond which lay home and liberty. Perchance her thoughts were away to the pretty town of Nice, where she had given her love to the man who had betrayed her, and had dreamed, as young girls will, of all that marriage and afterwards might mean to her.