We all dined together at this time in the large dining-room near by Miss Ruth's boudoir. An odder contrast than that between this fine room below and the still, desolate sea above, no mind could imagine. For, on the one hand, were the insignia of civilization--luxury, display, the splendid apartment, the well-dressed women, the table decked out with fine linen and silver, the windows showing the sea-depths and all their wondrous quivering life; on the other hand, the black shapes of night and death, the menace of the boats, the anchored yacht, the darkening skies, the looming island. We sat down fourteen souls, that might have met in some great country house, and there have gathered in friendship and frivolity. Never in all my life had I seen Miss Ruth so full of vivacity or girlish charm. Her laughter was like the music of bells; the jest, the kindly word was for every man; and yet sometimes I, at her side, could look deep into those grey-blue eyes to read a truer story there. And in the babble of the talk she would whisper some treasured word to me, or touch my hand with her own, or say, "Jasper, it must be well, it must be well with us!" Of that which lay above in the darkening East, no man spoke or appeared to think. There was ruby wine in our glasses; the little French girls capered about us like nymphs from the sea; we spoke of the old time, of sunny days in the blue Mediterranean, of wilder days off the English shores, of our homes so distant and our hopes so high; but never once of the night or that which must befall. _Monday. At eleven o'clock._ We have now been at our stations for two hours and nothing has transpired. I have Clair-de-Lune with me at the great sea-gate, and Dolly Venn and Seth Barker are at the gun. The night is so dark that the best trained eye can distinguish little either on sea or land. Ken's Island itself is now but a blur of black on a cloud-veiled horizon. We have shut off every light in the house itself; the reef runs no longer beneath the sea like a vein of golden light, nor do the windows cast aureoles upon the sleeping water. What breeze there is comes in hot gusts like breath from heated waters. We cannot see Czerny's yacht nor espy any of his boats near or afar; but we crouch together in the shelter of the rocks, and there is water near to our hand, and food if we seek it, and the ammunition piled, and the barrels of the rifles outstanding, and the figures with their unspoken thoughts, their hopes, their fears of the dreadful dawn that must be. Whence out of the night shall the danger come? Shall it come leaping and brandishing knives, a veiled army springing up from the shadows, or shall it come by stealth, boat by boat, now upon this quarter, now upon that, outposts seeking to flank us, deadly shots fired we know not where? I cannot tell you. The comrades at my side ask again and again, "Do you see anything, captain?" I answer, "Nothing!" It is the truth. _Monday. At midnight._