Through the long journey homeward two men thought only of vengeance, but with very different degrees of feeling. Charlie Vance held to the old Bible punishment for the pure crime of manslaughter, but in Reuel’s wrongs lay something beyond the reach of punishment by the law’s arm; in it was the accumulation of years of foulest wrongs heaped upon the innocent and defenceless women of a race, added to this last great outrage. At night he said, as he paced the narrow confines of the deck, “Thank God, it is night;” and when the faint streaks of dawn glowed in the distance, gradually creeping across the expanse of waters, “Thank God, it is morning.” Another hour, and he would say, “Would God it were night!” By day or night some phantom in his ears holloes in ocean’s roar or booms in thunder, howls in the winds or murmurs in the breeze, chants in the voice of the sea-fowl—“Too late, too late. ’Tis done, and worse than murder.”

Westward the vessel sped—westward while the sun showed only as a crimson bull in its Arabian setting, or gleamed through a veil of smoke off the English coast, ending in the grey, angry, white-capped waves of the Atlantic in winter.

CHAPTER XX

IT was believed by the general public and Mr. Vance that Molly and Dianthe had perished beneath the waters of the Charles River, although only Molly’s body was recovered. Aubrey was picked up on the bank of the river in an unconscious state, where he was supposed to have made his way after vainly striving to rescue the two girls.

When he had somewhat recovered from the shock of the accident, it was rumored that he had gone to Canada with a hunting party, and so he disappeared from public view.

But Dianthe had not perished. As the three struggled in the water, Molly, with all the confidence of requited love, threw her arms about her lover. With a muttered oath, Aubrey tried to shake her off, but her clinging arms refused to release him. From the encircling arms he saw a sight that maddened him—Dianthe’s head was disappearing beneath the waters where the lily-stems floated in their fatal beauty, holding in their tenacious grasp the girl he loved. An appalling sound had broken through the air as she went down—a heart-stirring cry of agony—the tone of a voice pleading with God for life! The precious boon of life! That cry drove away the man, and the brute instinct so rife within us all, ready always to leap to the front in times of excitement or danger, took full possession of the body. He forgot honor, humanity, God.