.

BURNED OUT.
Ruth sighed and stirred.

By the glare of the lightnings, now almost continuous, we saw that her rigidity, and in fact all the puzzling cataleptic symptoms, had disappeared.

Her limbs relaxed, her skin faintly flushed, she lay in deepest but natural slumber undisturbed by the incessant cannonading of the thunder under which the walls of the blue globe shuddered.

Ventnor passed through the curtains of the central hall; he returned with one of Norhala's cloaks; covered the girl with it.
An overwhelming sleepiness took possession of me, a weariness ineffable.
Nerve and brain and muscle suddenly relaxed, went slack and numb.
Without a struggle I surrendered to an overpowering stupor and cradled deep in its heart ceased consciously to be.
When my eyes unclosed the chamber of the moonstone walls was filled with a silvery, crepuscular light.