breathing short and uncertain, and as his bare arms circled her fiercely their lips met in one long moment of rapture, one final moment of life and ecstasy, in which all the pent longing of their lives found release and consummation now at this triumphant moment of their death.
A distant reverberation shook the air. Glendenning looked up quickly, and rubbed his eyes with astonishment. There, in the island’s little harbor were turning slowly the lean sides of a destroyer, and even as he looked, there was another burst of flame and smoke, and a whistling five-inch shell burst forty yards from where the natives had stopped. With a yell of mingled fear and baffled rage, they turned and fled off toward their canoes. Already, a boat, manned by the lusty arms of a blue-jacketed crew, had put off from the destroyer’s side, and was coming in toward shore.
“Saved! We are saved!” cried Glendenning, and leaping to his feet he signalled the approaching boat. Suddenly he paused.
“Damn!” he muttered bitterly. “Oh, damn!”
“What is it, Bruce?” she asked.
He answered her in a cold harsh voice.
“A destroyer has just entered the harbor. We are saved, Miss Mullins. Saved!” And he laughed bitterly.
“Bruce! Dearest! What is it? Aren’t you glad? Why do you act so strangely? We shall have all our life together.”
“Together?” he said, with a harsh laugh. “Oh no, Miss Mullins. I know my place. Do you think old J. T. Mullins would let his daughter marry Bruce Glendenning, international vagabond, jack of all trades, and good at none of them? Oh no. That’s over now, and it’s good-by. I suppose,” he said, with a wry smile, “I’ll hear of your marriage to some Duke or Lord, or some of those foreigners some day. Well, good-by, Miss Mullins. Good luck. We’ll both have to go our own way, I suppose.” He turned away.
“You foolish boy! You dear bad silly boy!” She threw her arms around his neck, clasped him to her tightly, and scolded him tenderly. “Do you think I’ll ever let you leave me now?”
“Veronica,” he gasped. “Do you MEAN it?”
She tried to meet his adoring eyes, but couldn’t: a rich wave of
