There will be two windows under the sand here. How will they bear now?"

"Two windows!" she exclaimed; and there was little to wonder at in her surprise, for the sand trended smooth to the dense thickets of herbage where the trees went huddling into the forest; and it needed something more than imagination to enable one to conceive of such a thing as a window having anything to do with this surface of almost powdery softness.

After pondering a minute, I walked to the spot, shells in hand, where I reckoned the window of the kitchen underneath to be situated, and fell ascraping; and when I had made a hole about a foot and a half deep, the edge of the shell scratched crisply over something polished. This proved to be a frame of glass. Miss Grant stood beside me, looking on, scarcely understanding what I was at, whilst I shovelled away with a couple of big shells, tossing the sand aside as a child digs for sport on the sea-shore, until I had laid bare a good space of the skylight. It was easy work, for the admixture of soil was too trifling to give much density and weight to the sand; yet it took me near an hour to lay bare the first window. I found it formed, as I had previously conjectured, of the frames of some vessel's skylight, but of a vessel that had been afloat in an age when, as I supposed, shipwrights were found willing to embellish the fabrics they launched with lozenge-shaped windows in the deckfittings. The frames lay flat, like the cover of a hatch, solidly overlapping the edge of a timber casement.

With

the help of the handspike I had manufactured, I prized one of the frames out of its fixings, which had been tautened by wet running sand into a kind of cement, then with my hands tore it bodily up. The high sun struck full through the opening; Miss Grant peered down.

"It is a room!" she cried.

"Yes," said I, "and it will furnish us with the sort of asylum we stand in

need of until the moment of our deliverance arrives."

"You do not intend that we should sleep down there?" she exclaimed, flushing to the startling thought, whilst her eyes brightened with the dread in

her.

"You shall judge for yourself, presently," said I, laughing.

"Sleep in such a hole as that!" she cried, with her white forefinger dramatically pointing downwards, and a fine imperiousness in the pose of her figure, springing as it were out of a sort of passing indignation at my suggestion. "Why, Mr. Musgrave, supposing the man that rung the bell last night should discover that we were underground; he might put the covers on these holes, and then-and then-"

"We should be buried alive," said I; "only there is no man here, so I am not afraid."

"Who rung the bell then?" she asked.

"No man, I'll swear," I answered, "unless he be endowed with some mystic power of converting himself into a bush or tree at sight. Indeed I hope we may not be able to find out who did ring the bell," I continued, sending a look at the ocean, "for I should like to be taken off at once, at this very minute indeed. But if we are forced to tarry we shall solve the mystery, depend upon it. There's

another window somewhere to be cleaned, Miss Grant," I continued, speaking cheerfully; "and when that's done I'll show you so quaint and surprising a curiosity in the shape of a piratical lair, that if I had it within reach of the millions of Great Britain I should make a fortune in a month by exhibiting it at a shilling a head. But how goes the hour?" looked at my watch; it was after eleven. "It is time,” said I, "to take a peep at the sea from the hummock. Pray God some gleam of canvas may be showing!"

I

She refused to remain until I returned, and so we went together. I must own to finding her most fasci

nating when she was most timorous. In her fearless moods she seemed to be withdrawn to a distance from me, so to speak; but her manner grew tenderly clinging when she was nervous. She passed her hand through my arm as we walked away, giving a glance over her shoulder at the dark square of hatch upon the sand, with an unconscious pressure of her fingers upon my sleeve. It was strange that she who had sat calm in the presence of the body of the murdered mate, who had confronted with wonderful composure the most threatening and malignant experiences of the voyage, should tremble at a black hole in the sand, and at my proposal to tenant a lodging which would protect us at least from the dews of heaven, from the sting of the mosquito, and from the jaws of the land-crab. But may not one read of a field-marshal fainting at sight of a mouse? It might not have needed more than a spider on her petticoat to wring a wilder screech from Joan of Arc than ever the stake extorted. One is sorry to say it but it is true, nevertheless-that it is in the weaknesses of human nature that one finds its lovableness.

There was nothing in sight. I searched with a shipwrecked eye, but the brim of the ocean ran in an unbroken sweep of blue to the mirroring of the sun. The heavens were cloudless; not the faintest feather of vapour in the whole spacious dome from its azure at the horizon to its brassy central glare. The heat would have been unendurable but for the shelter of the wide umbrella under which we both stood. The faintest draught of air was stirring, sometimes expiring to let the fiery buzzing of the island swing tingling to the ear, then floating afresh, hot as a breath from a furnace, driving the sound of the feverish concert back. The atmosphere trembled to the drawing of the sun; branch and tree and every spear of grass, the slim length of the cocoa to its tufted head, the plumed arch of the palm, the great drooping leaf of the wild cotton-tree,

faintly writhed upon the sight, till you thought you could see the mass of tropic vegetation growing-with many a crackling noise as of growths rent by the roasting glare, cleaving the shrill, fierce humming with a strange and startling edge of sound.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN UNDERGROUND LODGING. By two o'clock that afternoon I had entirely cleared the second window of the sand that rested nearly two feet thick upon it. I prized open a casement that the apartment beneath might obtain purification from the air as well as from the sunshine, and I then asked Miss Grant to step below with me and view the rooms. She had seen enough by peering through the skylights to excite her curiosity, and moreover to reassure her mind; and so she now let me hand her down that black hole from which she had shrunk with her eyes ashine with dismay in the morning.

The coolness of the atmosphere in this cavern was nigh as refreshing as a bath after the roasting glow up above; and the softened light of it fell soothingly upon the eye, fresh from the blinding whiteness of the sand and the blue brilliance of the ocean. Miss Grant looked quickly about the place, advancing to the doorway of the inner room with a hurried survey of the chamber, and then her manner lost its restlessness.

"Do you know, Mr. Musgrave," she said, "I expected to find that you had missed some secret way of getting out of this place. I felt almost certain that this was the haunt of the person who rung the bell last night."

"You are satisfied, I hope?"

"I see two rooms, and only one entrance. Yes; I am satisfied," she said, continuing to look round her penetratingly. "Have you lifted that faded silk hanging?" referring to the yellow drapery against the wall in the inner apartment.

"No," I answered, "but I'll do better than lift it," and so saying I went and pulled it down. It was like dragging at a cobweb. No stagnant flag rotting in the gloom of an abbey's roof over an aged stall would have parted more easily to a pull. The wall the stuff had concealed was like the others, soil and sand, solidified and shored up by a great number of stanchions and transverse beams. Miss Grant now behaved as if she were in a museum. Her face was lighted up by curiosity, and she peered at everything with the liveliest interest. The daylight lay bright in each room, and the damp and mouldy smell was fast yielding to the aromatic air gushing warmly in, laden with the island's multitudinous voice, through the open casements. I overhauled the contents of the old black chest afresh, in the hope of meeting with some hint of the story of this queer dwelling-place, but found nothing to suggest an idea

even.

The charts, so far as I could make them out, were buccaneering maps of the Antilles and the Panama main, with here and there a rude, illdigested, most deceptive outline stealing out of the grimy thickness of dirt and mildew. I stretched the silk to the light, but the figurations were as vague as they had shown by candlelight. The fire-arms were crumbling, rusty old pieces, great curiosities no doubt in their way, as were the pistols and the hangers, and indeed every piece of furniture in the place.

"And you think," said Miss Grant, coming to a stand after the narrowest imaginable inspection of everything in true womanly style, and gazing around her with wonder no longer mixed with apprehension, "that this was many years ago the home of a pirate?"

"Ay, no doubt of it," I responded. "A hundred and fifty years ago I dare say this was a very glittering and sumptuous interior. Look at the legs of that bedstead. Saw any one the like of such carving, I mean on so prosaic a piece of furniture? It was the princely decoration of some rich

galleon's state-cabin, I dare say; and one need not shut one's eyes to realize the idea of a head like Cervantes'who, by the way, was an exceedingly ugly man-snoring on a pillow there, the figure concealed to the throat by some exquisitely-worked counterpane of silk. Here is enough to set the imagination off into a brisk trot. The high-sterned polacre, striking the glory of the westering sun from her windows into the dark blue beneath, is riding within musket-shot of the beach; her captain, mate, and boon companions of the crew are here carousing. See them in their great flapping hats, their yellow belts, their big jack-boots, their spiked beards, and moustaches curled to their piratical eyes, roaring out some song of old Spain, with goblets before them filled with a vintage of which we, a debased posterity, can never know the magical qualities. The old villains! they drank all the fine liquor, and left us the gout!"

"Your picture wants a heroine," said Miss Grant, laughing.

"Oh," said I, "I have not forgotten her. She must be yellow-haired; some Saxon sweetheart captured out of an English ship, bound, shall we say, to Rio, Miss Grant? She has exhausted the language of entreaty, wept her glorious eyes dim, and grief, as she sits yonder, is eating away her trembling little heart as she listens with a loathing ear to the deep-throated chorusings of the black-browed roysters, as they sit clinking their silver flagons at that very table there, perhaps! The Lord preserve us! what a brush has fancy -to one's own intellectual eyesight, I mean-when her pigments are such realities as yonder bedstead, those high-backed chairs, those queer-looking frying-pans, in which many a hearty turtle-steak has hissed, many a Friday's absolving fare of fish has spluttered! But to be serious, Miss Grant, will not these rooms yield us the accommodation we require?"

She shook her head a little dubiously. "If we could remove that gloomy old bedstead-" she said.

"Oh, certainly," I interrupted. "A little hammering of it with one of those muskets should render it portable. Your hammock will take its place excellently. Then, with the skylight casement a bit open for the fresh air it would let through, and a shawl swung from that metal rod over the doorway, the room would provide you with as snug a retreat as any hotel could offer; whilst I should make my bed here "we were conversing in the room which I must call the kitchen"ready at a moment's notice to interpose, pistol in hand, betwixt that entrance, which your presence beyond will render sacred, and the villainous bell-ringer, whoever he may be."

"You do not think of sleeping here to-night, at all events," she said.

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No, since I see how reluctant you still are. But your health is precious, and mine also is precious for your sake. A few nights of exposure to the damp of these moonlit heavens would, I fear, tell upon us both, breed a fever, afflict us with the ague, disable us by some sort of sickness, and leave us in a very bad case indeed. We have to get away from this island, you know; and if we design to achieve our deliverance keep well."

we must

Her good sense came to her rescue ; she perceived the truth of my words, and said she would do as I wished, only-not to-night. When that terrible bedstead had been removed, the place would look more wholesome.

"is

"Whatever I propose," said I, with thoughts of your comfort, your health, your security. 'Tis a bitter, hard experience for you, and would to God I knew how to soften it, better still how to end it. But the thing looks us in the face, and we must meet it as bravely as we can. My part is that of a protector. If I know myself I shall play it dutifully.”

She glanced at me a moment as if she would speak, then hung her head to hide the tears which filled her eyes, whilst she extended her hand,

saying, "I thank you-I thank you, Mr. Musgrave," just above her breath.

I never recall this strange wild time without asking myself whether I acted as a true, upright, high-minded gentleman should towards this lady, situated as she was, forced by stress of ocean into intimate association with me, at the mercy of my feelings and instincts as a man. I did my best. I know that my one whole-hearted desire was, she should never suffer an instant's pain, be sensible of a moment's grief, of the lightest stir of uneasiness, through this obligation of bare unconventional companionship with me. I could summon no better government of thought for my behaviour than this resolution. But then her own frank, fearless, beautiful nature helped me. Her very purity was like a meeting of my efforts half-way. A little too much of modesty in her would have constrained me with a constant sense of embarrassment by which I might have been led into blunders. Indeed I have to thank her own heroic, honest nature for the successful accomplishment of my desire, that our association on this island should be as painless to her woman's modesty as though the formidable conditions of our isolation, which forced us close and bound us, so to speak, together, had been as stringent as they were indeed relaxing.

I devoted the rest of the afternoon to dismantling the underground rooms; again and again however intermitting the work to repair to the summit of the hummock for a view of the sea, but without beholding the least sign of a vessel, though never could despair have rendered human gaze more strenuously eager and searching than mine. The task I had set myself distracted my thoughts; yet it was extremely depressing. It was as though we felt there was no help or hope for us, and that there was nothing for it but to reconcile ourselves to our miserable lot, and effect the best settlement upon the island that could be contrived

by persons who were almost wholly without resources. I caught Miss Grant eyeing the old saucepans and frying-pans with an air of mingled doubt and thoughtfulness, and then she presently made a little collection of them, and was going up the steps. I asked her what she intended to do with the things. She answered that she meant to clean them; they were not fit to use as they were. I looked at her delicate white hands with a movement of remonstrance in me; but then I reflected that occupation of any sort was good for people situated as we were, and that the soiling or coarsening of her hands would be but a very small matter indeed side by side with the desperate needs which might presently grow upon us. But it was with something almost of a laugh of bitterness that I turned from her handsome form as she mounted the steps to the open, and resumed my work. "A pretty leveller is the sea!" thought I. think of this stately and lovely lady, who ought to be drawing close to her sweetheart, and to the comforts and refinements of a sunny and pleasant home, scouring old pots and pans upon a desert island; with myself, a gentleman at ease, forsooth! a Piccadilly dawdler, knocking an old bedstead to pieces, as though he had bound himself apprentice to some old ragand-bone merchant, and furbishing up a residence which even a mole might eye with distrust!"

"To

Nevertheless, denuded of my coat and waistcoat, and my shirt-sleeves rolled above my elbows, I continued to toil manfully, making very little account of the gloomy thoughts that weighed on me. With the stock of one of the muskets I speedily demolished the bedstead, carrying it piecemeal above, where I found Miss Grant seated, shaded by an umbrella, polishing the saucepans and other contrivances with a wet rag and sand. One showed bright to her scrubbing, and she watched me with a well-pleased face as I inspected it. The fact was, No. 357-VOL. LX.

there had come to my mind the story of a party of shipwrecked people who had been poisoned by eating food cooked in utensils which they had found in an old house hard by the spot where they had been cast away, and I considered our sufferings already too lively to demand the supplementary punishment of a deadly stew-pan. However, the kettle was of iron, and the other things of stout block tin, and so I went back to my work, leaving her to go on with hers.

I remember I was sufficiently silly,

as I cleared this cavernous retreat of such grimy furniture as we did not need, to continue in some small hope of meeting with something unexpected. Must I confess it? I was weak enough to suffer myself to be haunted by a little dream of treasure. I was but a young man, with much of the boy still clinging to me. After all, this was a sort of adventure to make even an older heart than mine feel virginal with romantic fancy. A cave into which the light of day may not have penetrated for above a century—as true a copy of a piratical lair as the most ardent imagination could body forth into which the dullest eye could not have peered without peopling it with a score of spectral things vital with the colours of imagination, and gathering a character of substantiality almost from the odd fantastic surroundings of dim silk and drapery, of a bedstead that carried one's thoughts to the great galleon with its bristling broadsides and its mast-long pennons; of cutlass, matchlock, and hanger charged with suggestions of the Tortugas, Panama, the train of mules laden with silver, bracelets of gold on arms of ebony, and the citadel guarding store-houses of ingots built roofhigh-why, I say, it was impossible for me, with such young eyes as I then carried in my head, man though I was in years, to dismantle such a retreat as this without the sort of hope that must have set me laughing had it been told to me of another. But I explored to no purpose. Floor

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