wooded island. The large papyrus thicket on the shore also hid boats
from spying eyes, and near the spot where Ledscha landed was a grassy
seat which looked like an ordinary resting place, but beneath it the
corsairs had built a long, walled passage, that led to the other side of
the island, and had enabled many a fugitive to vanish from the sight of
pursuers, as though the earth had swallowed them.

"When the moon is over the island," Ledscha repeated after she had waited
more than an hour.

The time had not yet come; the expanse of water lay before her
motionless, in hue a dull, leaden gray, and only the dimly illumined air
and a glimmering radiance along the edges of the waves that washed the
island showed that the moon was already brightening the night.

When its full orb floated above the island Hermon, too, would appear, and
the happiness which had been predicted to Ledscha would begin.

Happiness?

A bitter smile hovered around her delicately cut lips as she repeated the
word.

Hitherto no feeling was more distant from her; for when love and longing
began to stir in her heart, it seemed as though a hideous spider was
weaving its web about her, and vague fears, painful memories, and in
their train fierce hate would force glad expectation into the shadow.

Yet she yearned with passionate fervour to see Hermon again, and when he
was once there all must be well between them. The prediction of old