CHAPTER XXXIII.

Otago Witness, Issue 878, 26 September 1868, Page 19

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Helen's strength was coming back to her but slowly ; she complained of great lassitude and want of appetite. But the following day having cleared up, the sun shone out with great power and brilliancy. She gladly welcomed the return, of the fine weather, but Hazel shook his head ; ten days' rain was not their portion — the bad weather would return, and complete the month or six weeks' winter to which Nature was entitled. The next evening the appearance of the sky confirmed his opinion. The sun set like a crimson shield ; gory, and double its usual size. It entered into a thick bank of dark violet cloud that lay on the horizon, and seemed to split the vapour into rays, but of a dusky kind ; immediately above this crimson, the clouds were of a. brilliant gold, but higher they were the color of ru bies, and went gradually off to grey.

But, as the orb dipped to the horizon, a solid pile of unearthly clouds came up from the south-east ; their bodies were singularly and unnaturally black, and mottled with copper color, and hemmed with a fiery yellow ; and these infernal clouds towered up their heads, pressing forward as if they all strove for precedency ; it was like Milton's fiends attacking the sky. The rate at which they climbed was wonderful. The sun set and the moon rose full, and showed those angry masses surging upwards and jostling each other as they flew.

Yet below it was dead calm.

Having admired the sublimity of the scene, and seen the full moon rise, but speedily lose her light in a brassy halo, they entered the hufc, which was now the head-quarters, and they supped together there.

While they were eating their little meal the tops of the trees were heard to sigh, so still was everything else. None the less did those strange clouds fly northward, eighty miles an hour. After supper Helen sat busy over the fire, where some gum collected by Kazel, resembling indiarubber, was boiling ; she was preparing to cover a pair of poor Welch's shoes, inside and out, with a coat of this material, which Hazel believed to be waterproof. She sat in such a position that he could watch her. It was a happy evening. She seemed content. She had got over her fear for him ; they were good comrades if they were nothing more. It was happiness to him to be by her side even on those terms. He thought of it all as he looked at her. How distant she had seemed once to him ; what an unapproachable goddess. Yet there she was by his side in a hut he had made for her.

He could not help sipping the soft intoxicating draught her mere presence offered him. But by-and-by he felt his heart dissolving within him, and he was trifling with danger. He must not look on her too long, seated by the fire like a wife. The much-enduring man rose, and turned his back upon the sight he loved so dearly. He went out at the open door intending to close it, and bid her goodnight ; but he did not do so just then, for his attention, as an observer of nature, was arrested by the unusual conduct of certain animals. Gannets and other seabirds were running about the opposite wood and craning their necks in a strange way. He had never seen one enter that wood before.

Seals and sea-lions were surrounding the slope, and crawling about, now and then plunging into the river, which they crossed with infinite difficulty, for it was running very high and strong. The trees also sighed louder than ever. Hazel turned back to tell Miss Rolleston something extraordinary was going" on. She sat in sight from the river, and as he came towards the hut, he saw her sitting by the fire reading. He stopped short. Her work lay at her feet ; she had taken out a letter, and was reading it by the fire.

As she read it her face was a puzzle. But Hazel saw the act alone ; and a dart of ice seemed to go through and through him.

This thon was her true source of consolation. He thought it was so before : he had even reason to think so. But, never seeing any palpable proofs, he had almost been happy. He turned sick with jealous misery, and stood there rooted and frozen.

_ Then came a fierce impulse to shut the sight out that cauaed this pain. He almost flung her portcullis to, and made his hands bleed. But a bleeding heart does not feel scratches.

v Good-night," said he, hoarsely. " Good-night," said she, kindly. And why should she not read his letter ? She was his affianced bride, bound to him by honor as well as inclination. This was the reflection to which, after a sore battle with his loving heart, tho much-enduring

man had to come at last ; and he had come to it, and was getting back his peace of mind, though not his late complacency, and about to seek repose in sleep, when suddenly a clap of wind came down like thunder, and thrashed the island and everything in it.

All tilings animate and inanimate seemed to cry out as the blow passed. Another soon followed, and another intermittent gusts at present, but of such severity that not one came "without making its mark.

Birds were driven away lil?e paper ; the sea-lions whimpered, and crouched into corners, and huddled together, and held each other, whining. Hazel saw but one thing— the frail edifice he had built for the creature he adored. He looked out of his boat, and fixed his horror-stricken eyes on it : he saw it waving to and fro, yet still firm. But he could not stay there. If not in danger, she must be -terrified. He must go and support her. He left his shelter, and ran towards her hut. With a whoop and a scream another Mast tore through the wood, and caught him. He fell, dug his hands into the soil, and clutched the earth. While he was in that position, he heard a sharp crack ; he looked up in dismay, and saw that one of Helen's trees had broken like a carrot, and the head was on the ground leaping about ; while a succession of horrible sounds of crashing, and rending, and tearing, showed the frail hut was giving way on every side ; racked and riven, and torn to pieces. Hazel, though a stout man, uttered cries of terror death would never have drawn from him ; and with a desperate headlong rush, he got to the place where the bower had been ; but now it was a prostrate skeleton, with the mat roof flapping like a loose sail above it, and Helen below.

As he reached the hut, the wind got hold of the last of the four shrubs, that did duty for a door, and tore it from the cord that held it, and whirled it into the air ; it went past Hazel's face like a bird flying.

Though staggered himself by the same blow of wind, he clutched the tree and got into the hut.

He found her directly. She was kneeling beneath the mat that a few minutes ago had been her roof. He extricated her in a moment, uttering inarticulate cries of pity and fear.

"Don't be frightened," said she; "I am not hurt."

But he felt her quiver from head to foot. He wrapped her in all her rugs, and, thinking of nothing but her safety, lifted her in his strong arms to take her to his own place, which was safe from wind, at least.

But this was no light work. To go there erect was impossible. Holding tight by the tree, he got her to the lee of the tent and waited for a hill. He went rapidly down the hill, but ere he reached the river a gust came careering furiously. A sturdy young tree was near him. He placed her against it, and wound his arms round her and its trunk. The blast came : the tree bent down almost to the ground, then whirled round, recovered, shivered ; but he held firmly. It passed. Again he lifted her, and bore her to the boat-house. "When he turned a moment to enter it, the wind almost choked her, and her long hair lashed his face like a whip. But he got her in, and they sat panting aad crouching, but safe They were none too soon ; the tempest increased in violence, and became more continuous. No clouds, but a ghastly glare all over the sky. No rebellious waves, but a sea hissing and foaming under its master's lash. The river ran roaring and foaming by, and made the boat heave even in its little creek. The wind, though it could no longer shake them, went screaming terribly close over their heads — no longer like air in motion, but,_ solid and keen, it seemed the Almighty's scythe mowing down Nature ; and soon it became, like turbid water, blackened with the leaves, branches, and fragments of all kinds it whirled along with it. Trees fell crashing on all sides and the remains of the hut passed over their heads into the sea.

Helen behaved admirably. Speech was impossible, hut she thanked him without it— eloquently ; she nestled her little hand into Hazel's, and to Hazel, that night, with all its awful sights and sounds, was a blissful one. She had been in danger but was now safe by his side. She had pressed his hand to thank him, and now she was cowering a little towards him in; a way that claimed him as her protector. Her glorious hair blew over him and seemed to net him ; and now and then, as they heard some crash nearer and more awful than another, she clutched him quickly though lightly ; for, in danger, her sex love to feel a friend ; it is not enough to see him near : and once, when: a great dusky form of a sea-lion camecrawling over the mound, and whimpering, peeped into the boat-house, she even fled to his shoulder with- both hands for a moment, and was there, light as a feather, till the creature had passed on, And his

soul,-was full of pea.ee, and a great tranquility overcame him. He hoard nothing of the wrack ; knew nothing of the danger. . Oh, mighty Love ! The tempest might blow, and fill air and earth with ruin, so that it spared her. The wind was kind, and gentle the night, which brought that hair round his face, and that head so near his shoulder, and gave him the holy joy of protecting under his wing the soft creature he,adored.

-:, CHAPTER XXXIV. Otf the morning that followed this memorable night our personages seemed to change characters. Hazel sat down before the relics of the hut— three or four strings dangling, ,and a piece of network waving —and eyed them with shame, regret, and humiliation. He was so absorbed in his self-reproaches that he did not hear a light footstep, and Helen Rolleston stood near him a moment or two, and watched the play of his countenance with a veryinquisitive and Idndly light in her own ©yes. " Never mind," said she, soothingly.

Hazel started at the music. " Never mind your house being blown to pieces, and mine has stood ?" said he half reproachfully. "You took too much pains with mine.' " I -will take a great deal more with the next."

" I hope not. But I want you to come and look at the havoc. It is terrible ; and yet so grand." And thus she drew him away from the sight that caused him pain. They entered the wood by a path Hazel had cut from the sea-shore, and viewed the devastation in Terrapin Wood. Prostrate trees lay across one another in astonishing numbers, and in the strangest positions ; and their glorious plumes swept the earth. "Come," said she, "it is a Tbad thing for the poor trees, but not for •us. See, the place is strewed with treasures. Here is a tree full of fans all ready made. And what is that ? A horse's tail growing on a cocoa tree ! and a long one too ! that will make ropes for yo-i, and thread for me. Ah, and here is a cabbage. Poor Mr Welch ! Well, for one thing, you need never saw nor climb any more. Bee the advantages of a hurricane." From the wood she took him to the shore, and there they found many birds lying dead ; and Hazel picked up several that he had read of as ?ood to eat. ( For certain signs had convinced him Ins fair and delicate companion was carmvora, and must be nourished accordingly. Seein°- him so employed, she asked him archly whether he was beginning to see the comforts of a hurricane. IS ot yet, said he ; " the account is far from even. "Then come to where the rock was blown down." She led the way gaily across the sands to a point where an overhanging crai» had fallen, with two trees, and a quantity of earth and plants that irrew above it. But when they got nearer. She became suddenly grave, and stooa still The mass had fallen upon a sheltered place, where seals were hiding from the wind, and had buried several, for two or three limbs were sticking out, of victims overwhelmed in the nun; and a magnificent sea-lion lay clear of the smaller rubbish, but quite dead The cause was not far to seek : a ton of hard rock had struck him, and then ploughed up the sand in a deep furrow and now xested within a yard or two of the animal, whose back it had broken. Hazel went up to the creature and looked at it ; then he came to Helen ; she was standing aloof. " Poor bugbear !" said he. " Come away ; Then, as they returned, tt Does that not- reconcile you to the loss of a hut 1 We are not blown away nor crushed." ,<r. ± "That is true," said Hazel; "but suppose your health should suffer from the exposure to such fearful weather, bo unlucky ! so cruel i just as you were beginning to get stronger." "I am all the better for it. Shall I tell you ? .Excitement is a good thing— not too often of course, but now and then ; and when we are in the humor for it, it ia meat and drink, and medicine to us. « What ! to a delicate young lady 1 «Avto a ' delicate young lady. Last tiight has done me a world of good. It L s shaken me out of myself. lam m better health and spirits. Of course lam very orry the hut is blown down-because you took so much trouble to build it ; but oS my own account I really don't care, a Xraw Find me some corner to nestle m to the boat with a briskness and a Vigor itfhat charmed and astonished him.

Souveat femme vane.

This gracious behaviour did not blind Hazol to the serious character of the situation, and ail Jweakfipt time he was think-

ing and thinking, and often kept a morsel in his mouth, and forgot to eat it for several seconds, he was so anxious and puzzled. At last he said, "I know a large hollow tree with apertures. If I were to close them all but one, and keep that for the door 1 No ; trees have betrayed me ; I'll never trust another tree with you. Stay : I know — I know — a cavern." He littered the verb rather loudly but the substantive with a sudden feebleness of intonation that was amusing. His timidity was superfluous ; if he had said he knew "a bank whereon the wild thyme grows," the suggestion would have been well received that morning. "A cavern!" cried Helen. "It has always been the dream of my life to live in a cavern."

Hazel brightened up. But the next moment he clouded again. "But I forgot. It will not do ; there is a spring running right through it ; it comes down nearly perpendicular, through a channel it has bored, or enlarged, and splashes on the floor."

"How convenient !" said Helen; "now I can have a bath in my room, instead of having to go miles for it. By-the-by, now you have invented the shower-bath, please discover soap. Is ot that one really wants any in this island, for there is no dust, and the very air seems purifying. But who can shake off the prejudices of early education ?" Hazel said, "Now I'll laugh as much "as you like, when once this care is off my mind." He ran off to the cavern, and found it spacious and safe ; but the spring was falling in «reat force, and the roof of the cave glistening with moisture. It looked a hopeless case. But if Necessity is the Mother of Invention, surely Love is the father. He mounted to the rock above, aud found the spot where the spring suddenly descended into the earth with the loudest gurgle he had ever heard ; a gurgle of defiance. Nothing was to be done there. But he traced it upwards a little way, and found a place where it ran beside a deep decline. "Alia, my friend !" said he. He got his spade, and with some hours' hard work he dug it a fresh channel, and carried it away entirely from its course. He returned to the cavern. Water was dripping very fast, but on looking up he could see the light of day twinkling at the top of the spiral watercourse he had robbed of its supply. Then he conceived a truly original idea : why not turn the empty watercourse into a chimney, and so give to one element what he had taken from another? He had no time to execute this just then, for the tide sva3 coming in, and he could not afford to lose any one of those dead animals. So he left the funnel to drip, that being a process he had no means of expediting, and moored the sea- lion to the very rock that had killed him, and was proceeding to dig o'-.t the seals, when _ a voice he never could hear without a thrill summoned him to dinner. It was a plentiful repast, and included roast pintado and cabbage-palm. Heleu Rolleston informed him during dinner that he would no longer be allowed to monopolise the labor attendant upon their condition. "No," said she, '•' you are always working for me, and I shall work for you. Cooking and washing are a woman's work, not a man's; and so are plaiting and netting." This healthy resolution once formed was adhered to with a constancy that belonged to the girl's character. _ The roof of the ruined hut came ashore in the bay that evening, and was fastened over the boat. Hazel lighted a bonfire in the cavern, and had the satisfaction of seeing some of the smoke issue above. But he would not let Miss Rolleston occupy it yet. He shifted her things to the boat, and slept in the cave himself. However, he lost no time in laying down a great hearth, and built a fire-place and chimney in the cave ; then came the stone funnel, stolen from Nature ; and above, on the upper surface of the cliff, came the chimney-pot. Thus, the chimney acted like a German stove: it stood in the centre, and soon made the cavern dry and warm, and a fine retreat during the rams. Whan it was ready for occupation, Helen said she would sail to it : she would not o-o by land, that was too tame for her. Hazel had only to comply with her humor, and at high water they got into the boat, and went down the river into the sea with a rush that made Helen wince. He soon rowed her across the bay to a point distant not more than fifty yards from the cavern, and installed her. But he never returned to the river ; it was an inconvenient place to make excursions from ; and, besides, all his work was now either in or about the cavern ; and that convenient hurricane, as Helen called it, not only made him a builder again— it also made him a currier, a soap boiler, and a salter. So they drew the boat 3 ust above high-water mark in a sheltered nook, and he set up his arsenal ashore In this situation day ghdod by after day. find week after week, in vigorous

occupations, brightened by social intercourse, and in some degree by the beauty and the friendship of the animals. Of all this industry we can only afford a brief summary. Hazel fixed two uprights at each side of the cavern's mouth, and connected each pair by a beam ; a netting laid on these, and covered with gigantic leaves from the prostrate palms, made a sufficient roof in this sheltered spot. On this terrace they could sit even in the rain, and view the sea. Helen cooked in the. cave, but served dinner up on this beautiful terrace. So now she had'a But and a Ben, as the Scotch say. He got a hogshead of oil from the sea-lion ; and so the cave was always lighted now, and that was a great comfort, and gave them more hours of indoor employment and conversation. The poor bugbear really' brightened their existence. Of the same oil, boiled down and mixed with wood-ashes, he made soap, to Helen's great delight. The hide of this animal was so thick he could do nothing with it but cut off pieces to make the soles of shoes if required. But the seals were miscellaneous treasures ; he contrived, with guano and aromatics, to curry their skins ; of their bladders he made vile parchment, and of their entrails gut, catgut, and twine, beyond compare. He salted two cubs, and laid up the rest in store, by enclosing large pieces in clay. When these were to be used the clay was just put into hot embers for some hours, then broken, and the meat eaten with all its juices preserved. Helen cooked and washed, and manufactured salt ; and collected quite a store of wild cotton, though it grew very sparingly, and it cost her hours to find a few pods. But in hunting for it she found other things — health for one. After sunset she was generally employed a couple of hours on matters which occupy the fair in everjfr situation of life. She made herself a sealskin jacket and pork-pie hat. She made Mr Hazel a man's cap of sealskin with a point. But her great work was with the cotton, which will be described hereafter.

However, for two hours after sunset, no more (they rose at peep of day), her physician allowed her to sit and work ; which she did, and often smiled, while he sat by and discoursed to her of all the things he had read, and surprised himself by "the strength and activity of his memory. He attributed it partly to the air of the island. Nor were his fingers idle even at night. He had tools to sharpen for the morrow, glass to make and polish out of a laminated crystal he had found. And ttenh e n the hurricane had blown away, amongst many other properties, his map ; so he had to make another with similar materials. He completed the map in due course, and gave it to Helen. It was open to the same strictures she had passed on the other. Hazel was no chartographer. Yet this time she had nothing but praise for it. How was that?

Relieved of othor immediate cares, Hazel's mind had time to dwell upon the problem Helen had set him ; and one fine day a conviction struck him that he had taken a narrow and puerile vibw of it, and that, after all, there must be in the nature of things some way to attract ships from a distance. Possessed with this thought, he went up to Telegraph Point, abstracted his mind from all external objects, and fixed it on this idea, — but came down as he went. He descended by some steps he had cut zig-zag for Helen's use, and as he put his foot on the fifth step, — whoo — whirr— whizz — came nine ducks, cooling his head, they whizzed so close ; and mado right for the lagoons. " Hum !" thought Hazel ; "I never see you ducks fly in a.ny direction but that. " This speculation rankled him all night, ! and he told Helen he should reconnoitre j at daybreak, but should not take her, as there might be snakes. He made the boat ready at daybreak, and certain gannets, pintados, boobies and noddies, and divers with eyes in their heads like fieryjewels — birds whose greedy maws he had often gratified — chose to fancy he must be going a fishing, and were on the alert, and rather troublesome. However, he sot adrift, and ran out through North Gate, with a light westerly breeze, followed by a whole fleet of _ birds. These were joined in due course by another of his satellites, a young seal he called Tommy, also fond of fishing. The feathered convoy soon tailed off ; but Tommy stuck to him for about eight miles. He ran that distance to have a nearer look at a small island which lay due north of Telegraph Point. He satisfied himself it was little more than a very long, large reef, the neighborhood of which ought to be avoided by ships of burden, and resolving to set some beacon or other on it ere long, he christened it White Water Island, on account of the surf ; he came about and headed for the East Bluff.

Then Tommy gave him up in disgust ; perhaps thought his conduct vacillating. Animals all despise that. He soon landed. a;most under the voj'

cano, and moored his boat not far from a cliff that seemed peaked with snow; but the snow was the guano of a thousand years.' Exercising due caution this time, he got up to the lagoons, and found a great many ducks swimming about. He approached little parties to examine their varieties. They all swam out of his way ; some of them even flew a few yards, and then settled. Not one would let him come within forty yards. This convinced Hazel the ducks were not natives of the island,- but strangers, who were not much afraid, because they • had never been molested on this particular island; but still distrusted man. '

While he* pondered thus, there was a great noise of wings, and about a dozen I ducks flew- over his head on the rise, and passed eastward, still rising till they got into .the high currents, and away upon the wings of the wind for distant lands. The grand rush of their "wings and the off-hand way. in which they spurned, abandoned, and disappeared from, an island that held him tight, made Hazel feel very small. His thoughts took the form of Satire. " Lords of the creation, are we 1 We sink in water ; in air we tumble ; on earth we slaughter." These pleasing reflections did not prevent his taking their exaot line of flight, and barking a tree to mark it. He was about to leave the place, when he heard a splashing not far from him, and there was a duck jumping about on the water in a strange way. Hazel thought a snake had got hold of her, and ran to her assistance. He took her out of the water, and soon found" what was the matter : her bill was open and a fish's tail sticking out. Hazel inserted his finger and dragged out a small fish which had erected the spines on its back so opportunely as nearly to kill its destroyer. The duck recovered enough to quack in a feeble and dubious manner. Hazel kept her for Helen, because she was a plain brown duck. With some little reluctance he slightly shortened one wing, and stowed away his captive in the hold of the boat. He happened to have a great stock of pitch in the boat, so he employed a few honrs in writing upon the guano rocks. On one he wrote in huge letters : AN ENGLISH LADY WRECKED HERE. HASTE TO HER RESCUE. On another he wrote in smaller letters : BEWAEE THE REEFS O!S THE NOBTH SIDE. LIE OFF FOB. SIGNALS. Then he came home and beached the boat, and brought Helen his captive. "Why, it is an English duck!" sho cried, and was enraptured. By this visit to the lagoons, Hazel gathered that this island was a half-way house for migrating birds, especially ducks ; and he inferred that the line those vagrants had taken was the shortest way from this island to the nearest land. This was worth knowing, and set his brain working. He begged Helen to watch for the return of the turtle doves (they had all left the island just before the rain), and learn, if possible, from what point of the compass they arrived. The next expedition was undertaken to please Helen ; she wished to examine tho beautiful creeks and caves on the north side, which they had seen from a distance when they sailed round the island. They started on foot one delightful day, and walked briskly, for the air, though balmy, was exhilarating. They followed the course of the river till they came to the lake that fed it, and was fed itself by hundreds of little gutters down which the hills discharged the rains. This was new to Helen, though not to Hazel ; she produced the map, and told the lake slily that' it was incorrect, a little too big. She took some of the water in her hand, sprinkled the lake with it, and called it Hazelmere. They bore a little to the right and proceeded till they found a creek shaped like a wedge, at whose broad end shone an arch of foliage studded with flowers, and the sparkling blue water peeped behind. This was tempting, but the descent was rather hazardous at first ; great square blocks of rock, one below another, and these rude steps were coated with mosses of rich hue, but wet and slippery ; Hazel began to be alarmed for his companion. However, after one or two difficulties, the fissure opened wider to the sun, and they descended from the slimy rocks into a sloping hot-bed of exotic , flowers, and those huge succulent leaves , that are the glory of the tropics. The ground was carpeted a yard deep with their luxuriance, and others, more as- ■ piring, climbed the warm sides of the : verging cliffs, just as creepers go up a- ' wall, lining every crevice as they rose. . In this blessed spot, wanned, yet not ; scorched, by the tropical sun, and fed i with trickling waters, was seen what i marvels boon. Nature can do. Here, our vegetable dwarfs were giants, and our ; flowers were trees. One lovely giantess of the jasmine tribe, but with flowers shaped liked the marigold, and scented . like a, tube rose, ha.d a. stem a& thick &6 ft

poplar, and carried its thousand buds and amber- colored flowers up eighty feet of broken rock, and planted on every ledge suckers, that flowered again, and filled the air with perfume. Another tree about half as high was covered with a cascade of snow-white tulip 3, each as big as a small flower-pot, and scented like honeysuckle. An aloe, ten feet high, blossomed in- a corner, unheeded among loftier beauties. And at the very mouth of the fissure a huge banana leaned across, and flung out its vast leaves, that seemed translucent gold against the sun ; under it shone a monstrous cactus in all her pink and crimson glory, and through the maze of color streamed the deep blue of the peaceful ocean, laughing, and catching sunbeams.

Helen leaned against the cliff and quivered with delight, and that deep sense of flowers that belongs to your true woman.

Hazel feared she was ill.

"111!" said she. "Who could be ill here 1 It is heaven upon earth ! Oh, you dears ! oh, you loves ! And they all seem growing on the sea, and floating in the sun."

" And it is only one of a dozen such," said Hazel. "If you would like to inspect them at your leisure, I'll just run to Palm-tree Point, for my signal is all askew. I saw that as I came along."

Helen assented readily, and he ran off ; but left her the provisions. She was not to wait dinner for him.

Helen examined two or three of the flowery fissures, and found fresh beauties in each, and also some English leaves, that gave her pleasure of anether kind ; and after Bhe had revelled in the flowers, she examined the shore, and soon discovered that the rocks, which abounded here (though there were also large patches of clear sand), were nearly all pure coral, in great variety. Red coral was abundant ; and even pink coral, to which fashion was just then giving a fictitious value, was there by the ton. This interested her, and so did some beautiful shells that lay sparkling. The time passed swiftly ; and she was still busy in her researches, when suddenly it darkened a little, and looking back she saw a white vapor stealing over the cliff, and curling down. Upon this, she thought it prudent to return to the place where Hazel had left her ; the more so as it was near sunset.

The vapour descended and spread, and covered sea and land. Then the sun set : and it was darkness visible. Coming from the south, the sea-fret caught Hazel sooner and in a less favorable situation. Returning from the palm tree he had taken the shortest cut throiigh a Bmall jungle, and been so impeded by the scrub that, when he got clear, the fog was upon him. Between that and the river he lost his way several times, and did not hit the river till near midnight. He followed the river to the lake, and coasted the lake, and then groped his way towards the creek. But, after a while, every step he took was fraught with danger ; and the night was far advanced when he at last hit off the creek, as he thought. He halloed, but there was no reply ; halloed again, and to his joy, her voice replied ; but at a distance. He had come to the wrong creek : she was farther westward. He groped his way westward, and came to another creek. He halloed to her, and she answered him. But to attempt the descent would have been mere suicide. She felt that herself, and almost ordered him to stay where he was. "Why, we can talk all the same," said she ; " and it is not for long."

It was a curious position, and one typical of the relation between them. So near together, yet the barrier so strong. "I am afraid you must be very cold," said he.

"Oh, no; I have my sealskin jacket on ; and it is so sheltered here. I wish you were as well off"." "You are not afraid to be alone down there ?"

"I am not alone when your voice is near me. Now don't you fidget yourself, dear friend. I like these little excitements. I have told you so before. Listen : how calm and silent it all is ; the pl ace — the night! The mind seems to fill with great ideas, and to feel its immortality." She spoke with solemnity, and he heard in silence.

Indeed it was a reverend time and place : the sea, whose loud and penetrating tongue had, in some former age, created the gully where they both sat apart, had of late years receded, and kissed the sands gently that calm night ; so gently, that its long low murmur seemed but the echo of tranquility.

The voices of that pair Bounded supernatural, one speaking up and the other down, the speakers quite invisible.

"Mr Hazel," said Helen, in a low earnest voice, " they say that Night gives wisdom even to the wise ; think now. and tell me your true thoughts. Has the foot of man ever trodden upon this island before V There was a silence— due to a question

bo grave, and put -with solemnity, at a solemn tune, in a solemn place. At last Hazel's thoughtful voice came down. " The world is very, very, very old. So old, that the words 'Ancient History* are a falsehood^ and Moses wrote but as yesterday. And man is a' very old animal upon this old, old planet ; and has been everywhere. I cannot doubt he has been here."

Her voice went up. "But have you seen any signs V His voice came down. "I have not looked for them. The bones and the weapons of primeval man are all below earth's surface at thii time of day."

There was a dead silence. Then Helen's voice went up again. "But in modern times ? Has no man landed here from far-off places, since ships were built V The voice came sadly down. "I do not know."

The voice went up. " But think !"

The voice came down. "What calamity can be knew in a world so old as this ? Everything we can do, and suffer, others of our race have done, and suffered."

The voice went up. "Hush ! there's something moving on the sand."

{To be continued. )