I turned about reluctantly, to retrace my steps while the dim light yet lingered.  Some unseen angel of mercy it must have been that bade me pause, and led me gently down the steep bank to the waters edge, where the sharp spray lashed my cheeks.  If this be not the cause, then I know not why I went; or why, once being there, I should have turned to the right, and rounded the edge of the little bay.  Yet all of this I did; and God knows that many a time since I have thanked Him for it upon my knees.

I saw first the thing bobbing up and down behind a bare wave-washed rock that lifted a hoary crown close beside the water’s edge.  A branch from off some tree, I thought, until I had taken a half-dozen curious steps nearer, and felt my heart bound as I knew it to be a boat.  My first thought, of course, was of hostile Indians; and I swept the sand-hills anxiously for any other sign of human presence.  The world about me was soundless except for the ceaseless roaring of the waves, and there was not even a leaf within my sight to flutter.  I crept forward cautiously, seeing no footprints on the smooth sand, until my searching eyes rested upon a white hand, dangling, as if lifeless, over the boat’s gunwale.  Forgetting everything else in the excitement of this discovery, I sprang hastily forward and peered within the boat.

It was an awkward and rudely-formed water-craft, with neither mast nor oars, yet of fair size, broad-beamed and seaworthy.  In the forward part lay the body of a woman; curled up and resting upon the boat’s bottom, the head buried upon the broad seat so that no face was visible, with one hand hidden beneath, the other outstretched above the rail.  So huddled was her posture that I could distinguish few details in the fading light; yet I noted that she wore a white upper garment, and that her thick hair flowed in a dense black mass about her shoulders.

For a moment I stood there helpless, believing I gazed upon death.  She either moved slightly, or the waves rocked the boat so as to somewhat disturb her posture.  That semblance of life sent my blood leaping once more within my veins, and I leaned over and touched her cautiously.

“Oh, go away!  Please go away!” she cried, not loudly, but with a stress of utterance that caused me to start back half in terror.  “I am not afraid of you, but either take my soul or go away and leave me.”

“For whom do you mistake me?” I asked, my hand closing now over hers.

“For another devil come out of the black night to torture me afresh!” she answered, never once moving even to my touch.  “Ah, what legions there must be to send forth so many after the soul of one poor girl!  ’T is not that I shrink from the end.  Death! why, have I not died a hundred deaths already?  Yet do I trust the Christ and Mother Mary.  But why does the angel of their mercy hold back from me so long?”

Was she crazed, driven mad by some extremity of suffering at which I could only guess?  That oarless boat, beached amid the desolation of sand and the waste of water, alone told a story to make the heart sick.  I hesitated, not knowing what I had best say.  She lifted her head slowly, and gazed at me.  I caught one glimpse of a pale young face framed in masses of black dishevelled hair, and saw large dark eyes that seemed to glow with a strange fire.