"He wonderful man," old Clair-de-Lune went on, standing, like some old Neptune of the sea, bolt upright on the pinnacle of rock; "wonderful man, and none like him! Thirteen year ago he first find this place, and thirteen year he wreck the ships. I know, for there was a day when he tell me much and I listen. He say, 'Make great fortune and no trouble to earn him. If sailor man drown, more fool he.' All the years back, hundreds of years, ships perish on Ken's Island. Czerny he hear the story in Japan, and he come to see the place for himself. They say he once sleep through the fog and mad afterwards. He no longer have right or wrong or care about the world. He come to Ken's Island and grow rich. Then his engineers find this rock. Once, long time ago, it have been part of the island, captain. The--what you say?--volocano, he shoot fire into the sea; but that was before the peoples. Czerny, he go down into the rock and he discover great cavern and little cavern, and he say, 'I live here in the sleep-time.' Plenty of money make fine house. He shut out the sea wherever he would come in; he build great windows in the rock; his _mécanicien_, he put up engine and draw air from the skies. Long year Czerny live here alone. Then one day come madame--ah, captain, I was sorry when I saw madame come! 'She will suffer here,' I said; she have suffered much already. Czerny is not as other men. If madame say to him, 'You good man; you and I live here always,' then she have everything, she go where she will, she become the master. But I say when I see her, 'No, never she will not say that. She good woman.' And then I fear for her, captain; I fear greatly. I did not know she have the English friend who will save her." He turned to me wistfully, and I read in his eyes of that deep affection which little Ruth Bellenden has never failed to win from all who know and learn to love her. _Monday. At three o'clock._ We held a council of war in the great hall at this hour, and came upon a plan to meet the supreme attack which must be made upon us tonight. We are all of one mind, that Czerny will seek to rush the house under cover of the darkness, and in this the sunless day must help him. We cannot look for any moon or brightness of the stars which shall aid our eyes when the sun has set. It will be a dark night, cloudy and, perhaps, tempestuous. If the storm should break and nature be our ally, then the worst is done with already and the end is sure. But we have no right to hope for that. We must face the situation like thinking men, prepared for any eventuality. Now, I had slept a little at the height of the day, and the first news that they brought to me when I waked was of the surrender of the two that remained in the caverns below, and of the fidelity of the other four of Czerny's men who already had joined us. So far as I can make out there may be but one living man in the lower story of the house, and for him and his goodwill we care nothing.