So it must be good-bye, Monsieur!" I was looking directly at her when she uttered these last words of dismissal, yet as she ended she vanished into the black night beyond, I knew not how.

A moment before, two figures had been standing there, De Croix's and hers; and although my eyes never once wavered, suddenly there remained but one, that of De Croix, peering forward with bent body as if he also knew not how or when the girl had vanished from his side.

I was staring yet, half believing it was but a trick of my eyes, when suddenly, like phantoms from the mist, a half-dozen naked figures topped the high bank before me.

It was the work almost of a second.

I caught Burns's low cry of warning from where he sat watching within the boat.
"Run!" I shouted to De Croix.