For weeks and weeks, it seemed to me, I was living over again the scenes through which I had passed in later years. Now I was charging at the battle of Sedgemoor, then before Judge Jeffreys, with my comrades. Next came wanderings, fightings, travelings. In my delirium I went through the witch press once more, with many a struggle to escape. I fought the French and Indians; I swam in the sea to save Lucille. I went down in great caverns of the ocean to bring her back to me, and saw her lying amid rainbow colored shells, tangled weeds weaving their long green sinuous lengths into her hair.

I fought the duel with Sir George, feeling his steel pierce my side like a big knife which was turned ’round and ’round. Horrible red Indians, with fierce painted faces came to torment me, though I fought them off time after time. I heard over again the explosion of the powder kegs; felt the mighty wind swoop down; was rocked to and fro by the blast.

I listened to my voice shouting out, only it did not sound like me, but as some one else afar off. At intervals 317I went floating through the air, a very bird on wings. Then I looked back to see a body that looked like mine lying on a bed. And the features were changed; the frame that had been robust was like a boy’s.

Then gradually all these things passed away, so that there was nothing but darkness and daylight; daylight and darkness. Ever through it all, a dear dim ghost of one I loved came and went--a woman. When she was near, whether it was day or night, I was at ease; her cool hand chilled the fever that burned in my brain. When she was gone it was dark, though it was day.

Out of all this peace came at length.

One day I opened my eyes seeing aright.

I was in a room which the sun entered to make bright and cheerful. The beams overhead reflected back the light, a fire on the hearth threw out a genial warmth, the kettle on the hob hummed and hissed, a great mother cat, by the chimney place, purred in contentment.

There was a movement in the room. A woman stood over me looking down. I seemed to know, rather than see, that she was the woman of my dreams--Lucille.

I glanced up at her. Her face was alight with love and tenderness. I tried to speak--to rise--but the strength, of which I used to boast, had left me. I could only murmur her name.

“Dear heart,” she whispered. “Thank God, you know me. Oh, Edward, it was so long--oh! so long--that I stood by you, only to hear you fighting all your battles 318over again, with never a sign to show that you knew I was near. Oh, I am so glad!”

Then, woman like, she burst into tears, which she tried in vain to check.

“My, my! What’s this?” called a cheery voice. “Come, Mistress Lucille, have you no better caution than to weep in here. Fie upon you. All hope is not gone yet.”

A woman in a gray dress with a spotless apron over it, bustled to my bed.

“I am not crying, Madame Carteret,” said Lucille with indignation in her tone.

“’Tis much like it,” said the other.

“Well, then, if I am, it is for joy. Edward--I mean Captain Amherst--is sensible again. He tried to speak my name, for he knew me when I turned his pillow.”

“Is it possible?”

Madame Carteret, wife of the Captain, in whose house I was, came over to look down on me. I smiled; it was all I could do, but that was as good to me as a hearty laugh, since I had come back from the land of terrible dreams. The Captain’s wife bustled away. Lucille, drying her eyes, smiling through her tears, came to stand near me.

“What has happened?” I whispered, but she prevented any more questions by placing her fingers on my lips. I kissed the rosy tips, whereat she drew them quickly away. Then I repeated what I had said.

319“Hush,” she replied. “You are not to talk. The doctor says you are too weak.”

Indeed I was, as I found when I tried to rise, for I fell back like a babe. Just then Madame Carteret came back with some broth in a bowl. It tasted so well that I disposed of all of it. She laughed as one well pleased.

The last drop gone I sighed from very comfort. Lucille, taking pity on the anxious look of inquiry I turned on her, related all that had transpired.

“I was coming through the corridor in the dark,” she said, “and I saw Simon strike at you. Oh I was so frightened! I screamed when his knife glittered. He started, moving his hand just a trifle as he heard me. Perchance that saved your life, for Doctor Graydon, who has been in long attendance on you, said that had the point gone an inch higher it would have touched the heart, and that would have been an end of Captain Amherst.”

I looked the love and devotion at Lucille I could not express in actions.

“Even at that,” she went on, “there was a grievous wound in your arm and one in your side. For six weeks you have been in that bed, knowing none of us, and at times so far away from us, that we feared to see you travel off altogether.”

“But I came back to you,” I said softly.

“Yes, dear; but you must not talk now. I will tell you the rest.

“After he had stabbed you Simon dropped his knife and 320fled. I ran to you, but you were as one dead. Captain Carteret and some of the men carried you into the house. We have nursed you ever since, Madame Carteret and I.”

I looked at Lucille’s face, noting that she had grown thin and pale, but yet more beautiful. I pressed her hand to my lips.

“Simon did not escape,” she went on after a pause. “Not long afterward his body was found in the woods, an Indian arrow through his heart. So now, dear, horrible as it all was, our enemies are gone. We have only ourselves left.”

Then while the shadows began to lengthen, the day to die, I fell asleep again. Not as before, disturbed by unpleasant dreams, but as a tired child. When I awoke in the morning I felt like a new man. The blood of health flowed through my veins; I felt the strength coming back to me. Lucille entered; a streak of sunshine. She smiled at me. I had propped myself up in bed, and that sign that I was on the mend seemed to give her pleasure.

“We must have Master Graydon in to see the improvement,” she said. “He will doubtless change the physic, giving you some herbs that will put you quickly on the way to recovery.”

“I pray so,” I answered, “for I am full sick of staying here like a woman.”

“Are you then so ready to leave us?”

“Only that I may make ready to stay with you forever,” at which Lucille blushed prettily.

321We talked, or rather Lucille did, and I listened, of many things. She told how she had heard I was to be in command of the military force of Elizabeth; that I was already considered the Captain. Every day since I had been wounded some of the men had called to see how I was. As for Captain Carteret, he had gone to London on business, and would not return to the Colony until spring.

Matters were progressing well in the town. The Indians had buried the hatchet, having had enough of fighting, and were at peace with the settlers. The crops, too, though suffering somewhat from the depredations of the red men, were plenty, so fertile was the land. The store-houses and barns were better filled than any year since the Colony had been in existence, and winter, which was already at hand, would find the village in good shape.

The repairs to the block house had been finished, the few houses in the town that had been burned by the Indians were being rebuilt. A band of settlers had come from Pennsylvania, so that we now numbered some two hundred men, and nearly half as many women.

It was late in November, the leaves were all off the trees, there had been little flurries of snow, the winds were mournful, and on every side one could see that winter was fairly come. I had been able to leave my bed. One afternoon, when the sun was setting behind a bank of gray clouds that promised a storm Lucille and I............