But Selina sat on where she was, her chin on her fists; and
her fancies whirled and drifted, here and there, in curls and
eddies, along with the smoke she was watching. As the quick-
footed dusk of the short October day stepped lightly over the
garden, little red tongues of fire might be seen to leap and
vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering under armfuls of
leaves, anon stoking vigorously, was discernible only at fitful
intervals. It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye of
Selina was looking upon,--a smoke that hung in sullen banks round
the masts and the hulls of the fighting ships; a smoke from
beneath which came thunder and the crash and the splinter-rip,
the shout of the boarding party, the choking sob of the gunner
stretched by his gun; a smoke from out of which at last she saw,
as through a riven pall, the radiant spirit of the Victor,
crowned with the coronal of a perfect death, leap in full
assurance up into the ether that Immortals breathe. The dusk was
glooming towards darkness when she rose and moved slowly down
towards the beckoning fire; something of the priestess in her
stride, something of the devotee in the set purpose of her eye.

The leaves were well alight by this time, and Harold had just
added an old furze bush, which flamed and crackled stirringly.

"Go 'n' get some more sticks," ordered Selina, "and shavings, 'n'
chunks of wood, 'n' anything you can find. Look here--in the
kitchen-garden there's a pile of old pea-sticks. Fetch as many
as you can carry, and then go back and bring some more!"

"But I say,--" began Harold, amazedly, scarce knowing his sister,