"Is it a time for compliments?" asked Santoris, with sudden sternness--"Harland, would you have me tell you ALL?"

Harland's face grew livid. He threw up his hand with a warning gesture.

"No!" he said, almost violently. He clutched the arm of his chair with a nervous grip, and for one instant looked like a hunted creature caught red-handed in some act of crime. Recovering himself quickly, he forced a smile.

"What about our little friend's 'aura'?"-he queried, glancing at me--"Does she 'express' herself in radiance?"

Santoris did not reply for a moment. Then he turned his eyes towards me almost wistfully.

"She does!"--he answered--"I wish you could see her as I see her!"

There was a moment's silence. My face grew warm, and I was vaguely embarra.s.sed, but I met his gaze fully and frankly.

"And _I_ wish I could see myself as you see me,"--I said, half laughingly--"For I am not in the least aware of my own aura."

"It is not intended that anyone should be visibly aware of it in their own personality,"--he answered--"But I think it is right we should realise the existence of these radiant or cloudy exhalations which we ourselves weave around ourselves, so that we may 'walk in the light as children of the light.'"

His voice sank to a grave and tender tone which checked Mr. Harland in something he was evidently about to say, for he bit his lip and was silent.

I rose from my chair and moved away then, looking--from the smooth deck of the 'Dream' shadowed by her full white sails out to the peaks of the majestic hills whose picturesque beauties are sung in the wild strains of Ossian, and the projecting crags, deep hollows and lofty pinnacles outlining the coast with its numerous waterfalls, lochs and shadowy creeks. A thin and delicate haze of mist hung over the land like a pale violet veil through which the sun shot beams of rose and gold, giving a vaporous unsubstantial effect to the scenery as though it were gliding with us like a cloud pageant on the surface of the calm water. The sh.o.r.es of Loch Scavaig began to be dimly seen in the distance, and presently Captain Derrick approached Mr. Harland, spy-gla.s.s in hand.

"The 'Diana' must have gone for a cruise,"--he said, in rather a perturbed way--"As far as I can make out, there's no sign of her where we left her this morning."

Mr. Harland heard this indifferently.

"Perhaps Catherine wished for a sail,"--he answered. "There are plenty on board to manage the vessel. You're not anxious?"

"Oh, not at all, sir, if you are satisfied,"--Derrick answered.

Mr. Harland stretched himself luxuriously in his chair.

"Personally, I don't mind where the 'Diana' has gone to for the moment,"--he said, with a laugh--"I'm particularly comfortable where I am. Santoris!"

"Here!" And Santoris, who had stepped aside to give some order to one of his men, came up at the call.

"What do you say to leaving me on board while you and my little friend go and see your sunset effect on Loch Coruisk by yourselves?"

Santoris heard this suggestion with an amused look.

"You don't care for sunsets?"

"Oh yes, I do,--in a way. But I've seen so many of them--"

"No two alike"--put in Santoris.

"I daresay not. Still, I don't mind missing a few. Just now I should like a sound sleep rather than a sunset. It's very unsociable, I know,--but--" here he half closed his eyes and seemed inclined to doze off there and then.

Santoris turned to me.

"What do you say? Can you put up with my company for an hour or two and allow me to be your guide to Loch Coruisk? Or would you, too, rather not see the sunset?",

Our eyes met. A thrill of mingled joy and fear ran through me, and again I felt that strange sense of power and dominance which had previously overwhelmed me.

"Indeed, I have set my heart on going to Loch Coruisk"--I answered, lightly--"And I cannot let you off your promise to take me there! We will leave Mr. Harland to his siesta."

"You're sure you do not mind?"--said Harland, then, opening his eyes drowsily--"You will be perfectly safe with Santoris."

I smiled. I did not need that a.s.surance. And I talked gaily with Captain Derrick on the subject of the 'Diana' and the course of her possible cruise, while he scanned the waters in search of her,--and I watched with growing impatience our gradual approach to Loch Scavaig, which in the bright afternoon looked scarcely less dreary than at night, especially now that the 'Diana' was no longer there to give some air of human occupation to the wild and barren surroundings. The sun was well inclined towards the western horizon when the 'Dream' reached her former moorings and noiselessly dropped anchor, and about twenty minutes later the electric launch belonging to the vessel was lowered and I entered it with Santoris, a couple of his men managing the boat as it rushed through the dark steel-coloured water to the sh.o.r.e.

VIII

VISIONS

The touch of the earth seemed strange to me after nearly a week spent at sea, and as I sprang from the launch on to the rough rocks, aided by Santoris, I was for a moment faint and giddy. The dark mountain summits seemed to swirl round me,--and the glittering water, shining like steel, had the weird effect of a great mirror in which a fluttering vision of something undefined and undeclared rose and pa.s.sed like a breath. I recovered myself with an effort and stood still, trying to control the foolish throbbing of my heart, while my companion gave a few orders to his men in a language which I thought I knew, though I could not follow it.

"Are you speaking Gaelic?" I asked him, with a smile.

"No!--only something very like it--Phoenician."

He looked straight at me as he said this, and his eyes, darkly blue and brilliant, expressed a world of suggestion. He went on:--

"All this country was familiar ground to the Phoenician colonists of ages ago. I am sure you know that! The Gaelic tongue is the genuine dialect of the ancient Phoenician Celtic, and when I speak the original language to a Highlander who only knows his native Gaelic he understands me perfectly."

I was silent. We moved away from the sh.o.r.e, walking slowly side by side. Presently I paused, looking back at the launch we had just left.

"Your men are not Highlanders?"

"No--they are from Egypt."

"But surely,"--I said, with some hesitation--"Phoenician is no longer known or spoken?"

"Not by the world of ordinary men,"--he answered--"I know it and speak it,--and so do most of those who serve me. You have heard it before, only you do not quite remember." I looked at him, startled. He smiled, adding gently:--"Nothing dies--not even a language!"

We were not yet out of sight of the men. They had pushed the launch off sh.o.r.e again and were starting it back to the yacht, it being arranged that they should return for us in a couple of hours. We were following a path among slippery stones near a rushing torrent, but as we turned round a sharp bend we lost the view of Loch Scavaig itself and were for the first time truly alone. Huge mountains, crowned with jagged pinnacles, surrounded us on all sides,--here and there tufts of heather clinging to large ma.s.ses of dark stone blazed rose-purple in the declining sunshine,--the hollow sound of the falling stream made a perpetual crooning music in our ears, and the warm, stirless air seemed breathless, as though hung in suspense above us waiting for the echo of some word or whisper that should betray a life's secret. Such a silence held us that it was almost unbearable,--every nerve in my body seemed like a strained harp-string ready to snap at a touch,--and yet I could not speak. I tried to get the mastery over the rising tide of thought, memory and emotion that surged in my soul like a tempest--swiftly and peremptorily I argued with myself that the extraordinary chaos of my mind was only due to my own imaginings,--nevertheless, despite my struggles, I remained caught as it were in a web that imprisoned every faculty and sense,--a web fine as gossamer, yet unbreakable as iron. In a kind of desperation I raised my eyes, burning with the heat of restrained tears, and saw Santoris watching me with patient, almost appealing tenderness. I felt that he could read my unexpressed trouble, and involuntarily I stretched out my hands to him.

"Tell me!" I half whispered-"What is it I must know? We are strangers--and yet--"

He caught my hands in his own.

"Not strangers!" he said, his voice trembling a little--"You cannot say that! Not strangers--but old friends!"

The strong gentleness of his clasp recalled the warm pressure of the invisible hands that had guided me out of darkness in my dream of a few nights past. I looked up into his face, and every line of it became suddenly, startlingly familiar. The deep-set blue eyes,--the broad brows and intellectual features were all as well known to me as might be the portrait of a beloved one to the lover, and my heart almost stood still with the wonder and terror of the recognition.

"Not strangers,"--he repeated, with quiet emphasis, as though to rea.s.sure me--"Only since we last met we have travelled far asunder.