In the silence that seemed only more audible by the low, melodious murmur of the streamlet, she had caught a strange sound--not a voice, not a footstep--only the cold, heavy clank of an iron chain. When she looked up she saw a man standing on the opposite side of the brook, and looking across at her with steadfast, gleaming eyes. He was a tall man, dressed in ragged clothing like a common tramp. His face was blackened to the hue of a negro's by soot or charcoal, but the finely molded features were those of a white man. In the waning light Jaquelina could see that his wrists were manacled, and heavy irons were fastened about his ankles, from which depended chains that had been severed in two. CHAPTER XV. At that sudden and terrible-looking apparition, Jaquelina remained for a moment perfectly motionless. Surprise and terror had rendered her for the time perfectly incapable of speech or motion. Meanwhile the gleaming black eyes of the man, looking inordinately large and fierce in his blackened face, were riveted upon her beautiful, pallid features. "Miss Meredith, do you not know me?" he asked, breaking the silence at last, in a low, deep, angry voice. Jaquelina shivered and started at that intense voice. His name fell from her lips in a gasp: "Gerald Huntington!" "Yes," he said, bitterly. "Gerald Huntington! I see you have not forgotten me. My tattered garb, my blackened face are not sufficient to hide your victim from your keen eyes." He held up his hands, that were blackened also, and she shivered as she saw the heavy handcuffs that were still clasped about his wrists, though the strong chain that had bound them together was filed in half. "I have escaped from the prison to which you betrayed me," he said to her in a tone of fierce triumph and joy. In all the terror of that moment Jaquelina felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted off her heart. "Before God, I am glad!" she broke out fervently, clasping her small hands together while her dark eyes sparkled with joy. But a scowl of withering scorn and unbelief broke over the dark features of the outlaw, transforming them to the semblance of a demon's. Jaquelina was reminded irresistibly of the vivid words in which Byron had described the Corsair. "There was a laughing devil in his sneer That raised emotions of both love and fear, And where his scowl of hatred darkly fell, Hope, withering, fled--and mercy sighed farewell." "Do not lie to me, Miss Meredith," exclaimed Gerald Huntington, with that terrible sneer still curling his closely-shaven lips. "Do not lie to me in hope of turning aside the shaft of my deadly revenge. I have sworn to punish you, and I shall keep my vow. You pretend to a penitence you do not feel; I have not the least doubt that you would be glad to deliver me up to justice this minute."