It was far past midnight; she was alone in the garden.

Sixty feet below her was the ground; above, the black dome of heaven.
She was not to know till long afterward that one of her faithful Thorberg men stood guard in the passage leading up from the garden, armed and willing to die.

One or the other slept in front of her door through all those nights on the island.
Something hot trickled down her cheeks from the wide, pitying eyes that stared so hard.

She was wondering now if he had a mother--sisters.

How their hearts would be wrenched by this! A mute prayer that he might have died in the storm of bullets before the fire swept over him struggled against the hope that he might have escaped altogether.