The dark fell with greater intensity as the dawn drew near. I thought that it typified our own black hour, when it seemed that fate had nothing left for us but a grave beneath the seas, or the eternal sleep on the island shore. * * * Another hour passed, and the dawn was nearer. I did not know then (though I know now) what kept Czerny's crew in the shadows, or why we heard nothing of them. Once, indeed, in the far distance where the yacht lay anchored, gunshots were fired, and were answered from some boat lying southward by the island; but no other message of the night was vouchsafed to us, no other omen to be heard. In the gloom of the darkened house women watched, men kept the vigil and prayed for the day. Would the light never come; would that breaking East never speed its joyous day? Ah! who could tell? Who, in the agony of waiting, ever thinks aright or draws the truthful picture? There was no new attack, I say, nor any sure news from the caverns below. From time to time men went to the stairs-head and watched the seas washing green and slimy in the corridors, or spoke of them beating upon the very steps of the great hall and threatening to rise up and up until they engulfed us all and conquered even the citadel we held. Nevertheless, iron gates held them back. Not vainly had Czerny's master-mind foreseen such a misfortune as this. Those tremendous doors which divided the upper house from its fellow were stronger than any sluice-gates, more sure against the water's advance. We held the upper house; it was ours while we could breathe in it or find life's sustenance there. Now, I saw little Ruth in the hour of dawn and she stood with us for a little while at the open gate and there spoke so brightly of to-morrow, so lightly of this hour, that she helped us to forget, and made men of us once more. "They will not come again to-night, Jasper," she said; "I feel, I know it! Why should they wait? Something has happened, and something spells 'Good luck.' Oh, yes, I have felt that for the last hour. Things must be worse before they mend, and they are mending now. The gale will come at dawn and we shall all go ashore, you and I together, Jasper!" "Miss Ruth," said I, "that would be the happiest day in all my life. You bring the dawn always, wherever you go, the good sunlight and God's blue sky! It has been day for me while I heard your voice and said that I might serve you!"