THE  BLACK-INDIES.
133
" Nell has not wished to speak," often re-
Eeated James Starr ; " but what she has with-
eld thus far from every one, she will not long
withhold from her husband ! The danger must
threaten Harry as much as the rest of us. Then
a marriage, which gives happiness to the hus-
band and wife, and security to their friends, is
a good marriage, or there are none such made
here below."
Thus the engineer reasoned, not without
some logic. He told old Simon his arguments,
and the latter approved of them. So there
seemed to be no obstacle to the marriage.
And why should there be ? Harry and Nell
loved each other. The old parents dreamed of
310 other companion for their son. Harry's
•comrades envied him his happiness, while
recognizing that he deserved it. The young
girl was alone, and had no consent to obtain
but that of her own heart.
But, if there were no one to oppose this mar-
riage, why, when the electric discs were extin-
guished at the hour of rest, when night spread
•over the workman's city, when the people of
Coal City were in their homes, why, from one
of the darkest corners of New Aberfoyle, did a
mysterious being glide among the shadows ?
What instinct guided this phantom through
certain galleries, so narrow that they would
liave been considered impracticable? Why
•did this enigmatical being, whose eyes pierced
-the most profound darkness, come crawling to
rthe border of Lake Malcolm? Why did he
:so obstinately direct his steps toward Simon
Ford's dwelling, and yet so prudently, that
bitherto he had escaped all detection ? Why
.did he listen at the windows and try to catch
fragments of conversation through the shutters ?
And when certain words reached him, why
•did he shake his fist in threatening the quiet
¦dwelling ? Why did these words escape his
âips, set in anger :
"She and he!   Never!"
CHAPTER XVII.
sunrise.
A month after—it was the 20th of August,
¦Simon, Ford and Madge offered their best wishes
¦to four tourists who were preparing to leave
the cottage.
James Starr, Harry and Jack Ryan were
going to take Nell to a soil which her feet had
Tnever touched, into a shining medium, whose
light had never met her eyes. The excursion
was to last two days. James Starr agreed
with Harry, that during the forty-eight hours,
the young girl should see all that she could not
see in the dark mine—that is, the different as-
pects of the -earth, as if a moving panorama of
-towns, meadows, mountains, rivers, lakes, gulfs
;and seas were enrolled before her eyes.
Now, in that part of Scotland, lying between
Edinburgh .and Glasgow, it would seem as if
nature had -exactly wished to write these ter-
restrial marvels, and, as for the skies, they
were there as everywhere, with their changing
•clouds, their moon serene or vailed, their radi-
.ant sun, their myriad stars.
The projected excursion had been arranged
-in a manner to satisfy the conditions of this
programme.
Simon Ford and Madge would have been
very happy to accompany Nell ; but, we know
them ; they did not willingly leave the cottage,
;and finally, they could not make up their minds
to abandon, even for a day, their underground
¦ dwelling.
James Starr went as an observer, a philoso-
pher, very curious on the subject of psycholog-
ical insight. He wished to watch Nell's fresh
impressions, perhaps even to surprise a few of
the mysterious events with which her child-
hood had been mingled.
Harry asked himself, not without fear, if
.another young girl but the one whom he loved
and whom he had hitherto understood, was not
going to reveal herself during this rapid initia-
tion in the things of the outer world.
As for Jack Ryan, be was as happy as a
chaffinch who flies away at sunrise, fie hoped
that his gaiety would become contagious and
spread among his traveling companions. This
Was one way of paying his expenses.
Nell was pensive and collected.
James Starr had decided, not without reason,
that the departure should take place in the
evening. It would be best for the young girl
to pass by an insensible gradation from the
darkness to daylight. Now, this is the result
that would be obtained, because, from midnight
to mid-day, she would undergo the successive
phases from dark to light, to which her eyes
would become gradually habituated.
As they were leaving the cottage, Nell took
Harry's hand, and said :
" Harry, is it really necessary for me to leave
our mine ; even for a few days ?"
" Yes, Nell," replied the young man, " it is
necessary.    It is necessary for you and for me !"
" Harry, ever since you rescued me, I have
been as happy as any one can be. You have
taught me, is not that enough ? What shall I
do ' up above ?' "
Harry looked at her without speaking. The
thoughts which she expressed were almost his
own.
" My daughter," then said James Starr, " I
understand your hesitation, but it is best for
you to come with us. Those whom you love
go with you, and they will bring you back. If
you wish, then, to continue to live in the mine,
like old Simon, like Madge, like Harry, you
are free to do so. I do not doubt that it will
be so, and I approve of it. But, at least, you
shall be able to compare what you leave with
what you take, and to act in perfect liberty.
Come then !"
" Come, my dear Nell," said Harry.
" Harry, I am ready to follow you," said the
young girl.
At nine o'clock, the last train from the tun-
nel hurried away Nell and her companions to
the surface of the county. Twenty minutes
afterward, it deposited them at the little station
where it connected with a small branch of the
Dumbarton and Stirling railway, which served
New Aberfoyle.
The night was rather dark. From the hori-
zon to the zenith, light clouds were moving
through the vault of heaven, under the north-
west wind which freshened the atmosphere.
They day had been beantiful, the night should
be so too.
Arrived at Stirling, Nell and her compan-
ions left the train, and soon walked away from
the terminus.
Before them, between tall trees, stretched a
road which conducted to the banks of the
Forth.
The first physical impression experienced by
the young girl, was that of the pure air, which
her lungs eagerly inhaled.
" Breathe well, Nell," said James Starr,
" breathe this air charged with all the revivify-
ing perfumes of the country !"
" What are those large vapors that ran over-
head ?" asked Nell.
" They are clouds," said Harry. " They
are half-condensed vapors, which the wind
blows from the west."
" Ah !" sighed Nell, " how I should like to
feel myself borne in their silent vortex. And
what are those bright points that shine through
the slits in the clouds ?"
" They are the stars of which I have spoken,
Nell. So many suns, so many centers of
worlds, perhaps like ours."
The constellations were delineated more
clearly in the dark blue firmament as the wind
scattered the clouds.
Nell watched the millions of shining stars
glittering overhead.
"But," she said, "if those are suns, how
can my eyes support the light ?"
"My daughter," said James Starr, "they
are suns, indeed, but suns which gravitate at
an enormous distance. The nearest of those
thousands of stars, whose rays reach us, is that
! star in the Lyre Wega, which you see there
near the zenith, and that is distant fifty thou-
sand millions of leagues. Its light then
cannot affect your eyes. But our sun will
rise to-morrow at thirty-eight millions of
leagues only, and no human eye can look fix
edly at it, for it's more fiery than the focus of
a furnace.    But come, Nell, come !"
They started. James Starr took the young
girl by the hand ; Harry walked by his side.
Jack Ryan came and went like a little dog im-
patient of his master's slowness.
The road was deserted. Nell watched the
shadows of the tall trees which the wind shook
in the dark. She might readily have mistake»
them for giants who gesticulated. The sigh-
ing of the breeze in the upper branches, the
profound silence during the calm, the line of
the horizon, which showed clearly where the
wood cut through a field, all impressed her
with new sentiments, and left with her inef-
faceable memories.
After having once asked questions, Nell was
quiet, and by common consent her companions
respected her silence. They did not wish to
influence by their words the young girl's sen-
sitive imagination. They preferred to let ideas
suggest themselves in her mind.
About half-past eleven they reached the
northern bank of the Gulf of Forth. There a
bark, which had been hired by James Starr,
awaited them. It was to take them, in a few
hours, to the port of Edinburgh.
Nell saw the sparkling water which undu-
lated at her feet with the action of the tides,
and seemed studded with trembling stars.
" Is it a lake?" she asked.
" No," replied Harry ; " it is a vast gulf of
running waters. It is the mouth of a river ; it
is almost an arm of the sea. Take a little of
this water in the palm of your hand, Nell, and
you will see that it is not sweet, like that of
Lake Malcolm."
The young girl bent over, dipped her hand
in the first waves, and carried it to her lips.
" This water is salt," said she.
" Yes," said Harry ; " the sea flows in here,
for it is flood tide. Three-quarters of our globe
is covered with this salt water, of which you
have just tasted a few drops."
" If the water of the rivers is only that of
the sea, which sends them the mists, why is it
sweet ?" asked Nell.
"Because water is distilled in evaporating,"
replied James Starr. "Clouds are formed by
evaporation, and send back the sweet water to
the sea in the form of rain."
"Harry, Harry!" cried the young girl,
" what is that red light which lights up the
horizon ?    Is it a forest on fire?"
And Nell pointed to the sky. In the midst
of the low fogs there was a place colored in the
east.
" No, Nell," replied Harry ; " it is the moon
rising."
"Yes, the moon!" cried Jack Ryan; "a
superb silver plate which celestial genii circu-
late in the firmament, and which receives all
the money from the stars."
" Really, Jack," replied the engineer, laugh-
ing, " I did not know you had a taste for
drawing comparisons."
" Well, Mr. Starr, my comparison is correct.
You see very well that the stars disappear in
proportion as the moon advances. I suppose,
then, that they fall into it."
" That is to say, Jack," replied the engineer,
"it is the moon which extinguishes with its
light the stars of the sixth magnitude, and they
are blotted out as it increases."
" How beautiful it all is," said Nell, who
only lived with her eyes; " but I thought the
moon was round ?"
" She is round when she is full," replied
James Starr; "that is to say, when she is in
opposition to the sun. But to-night the moon
enters into its last quarter; she is already
horned, and our friend Jack's silver plate is
nothing but a shaving-basin."
" Ah, Mr. Starr," cried Jack Ryan, " what
an unworthy comparison !    I was just going to
sing the couplet in honor of the moon :
" 'Star of tho night who in thy course
Conies to caress-----'
But no !   It is now impossible.   Your shaving-
basin has destroyed my inspiration."
Meanwhile, the moon rose slowly in the
horizon. The last vapors vanished before her.
At the zenith and in the west the stars still
glittered in a black depth, which gradually
paled in the moonlight.   Nell contemplated