As he drew near to the beach he called upon Barbara by name, but received no answer. This was puzzling, inasmuch as he was near the place where he had left her. Near? He was at the exact spot. There was the crag upon which she had been seated a few minutes previously, but of Barbara herself not a trace was visible. Vainly did his eyes seek to pierce the veil of mist that hung around; every object more than a few feet distant was hidden from view. The melancholy lapping of the waves over the sand was the only sound that broke the stillness. Where was Barbara? Ah! alarmed perhaps by the mist and by his long absence, she had left the shore to seek him, and had missed her way to the ruin. He would go back at once and find her. He had just turned to retrace his steps, when suddenly from out the mist that overhung the sea there came a strange voice,-- "_All ready? Give way, then. To Castel Nuovo!_" The words were immediately followed by the dip and roll of oars,--sounds that sent a thrill of horror through Paul's heart. In one swift moment he realized what was happening. The Austrian gendarmerie sent by the convent authorities had come at last! Come? ay, and were going with their purpose accomplished! Barbara, silent, perhaps because in a swoon, was in the hands of enemies who were carrying her off, and though her captors were but a few yards distant, he was unable to render her any aid. The suddenness, the stillness, the mysteriousness of it all was more appalling than the act of abduction itself. Half-an-hour had not yet elapsed since Barbara had pressed her glowing lips to his. And now--and now--was ever lover's dream cut short so awfully and abruptly as this? "Barbara! Barbara!" he cried in agony. "If you are there, speak." Was he mistaken, or did he really hear his own name pronounced by a voice faintly sounding, as if the speaker's head were muffled within the folds of a cloak? Following his first impulse, he dashed into the sea towards the point whence came the sound of the oars. Like a madman he leaped and plunged forward through mist and water with the desire of arresting the progress of the receding boat. Vain hope! He did not even obtain a glimpse of the boat, much less come up with it. Not till the water surged breast-high around him did he pause, and then he stood mechanically listening to the sound of the oar-sweep as it died away in the distance. Recovering from his stupor he waded back to land, and sought the place where he had left his own boat. It was gone! It had either been taken in tow by Barbara's captors, or cast adrift in order to prevent him from giving trouble by following them. The island had become his prison, inasmuch as he had no way of crossing to the mainland except by swimming, and though he might not have shrunk from a three-mile course in smooth water, the same distance across a sea-channel traversed by currents and covered by a thick fog was a very different matter.