Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/195

 the face of the woman that he loved bending over him—bent maddeningly near to his own countenance, so that he might feel the caress of her breath upon his cheek, might catch the elusive perfume of her hair.

"Where are we?" he asked.

A splash of saline spray wetted his face, by way of an answer; he turned his head away for an instant and glanced about them: the catamaran tossed wildly on the bosom of a wind-scourged sea. But at once his gaze went back to the woman. After a while she bent her head more near, smiling with divine tenderness, and kissed him upon the lips—there before her brother, in the sight of Mouchon and the three troopers.

"The Eirene is sighted," she murmured. "We are saved—dear heart."

He sighed, resting his head in the hollow of her arm—her arm that had served as its pillow for weary hours.

"'Tis a dream," he told her. "A dream, and I'll believe no word of it, sweetheart. … But, my faith, 'tis a heavenly sweet dream!"