Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/79



I came to myself I was lying, not in the outer blackness of the Mohune vault, nor on a floor of sand, but in a bed of sweet, clean linen, and in a little whitewashed room, through the window of which the spring sunlight streamed. Oh the blessed sunshine, and how I praised God for the light! At first I thought I was in my own bed at my aunt's house, and had dreamed of the vault and the smugglers, and that my being prisoned in the darkness was but the horror of a nightmare. I was for getting up, but fell back on my pillow in the effort to rise, with a weakness and sick languor which I had never known before. And as I sank down I felt something swing about my neck, and putting up my hand, found 'twas Colonel John Mohune's black locket, and so knew that part at least of this adventure was no dream.

Then the door opened, and to my wandering thought it seemed that I was back again in the vault, for in came Elzevir Block. Then I held up my hands and cried—