“Silence, you fool; the men are coming!” he said, clutching at her wrist and twisting it cruelly.
She gave a little shriek of pain, and caught at her breast with the other hand that held the broken blades of shelisters.
“Oh, you have struck me!” she cried. “That is the end of my shame, and I shall make you suffer.”
He saw a poignard glint momentarily in the morning sun that was turning Isle Faoineas’ sands to gold, and before he could prevent her she had plunged the weapon in her bosom. She fell with a cry at his feet, her hair in the ashes of the fire they had last night sat by. The blood came bubbling to her mouth and welled out on her bosom where the poignard rose and fell with her moaning.
For a moment, instead of pity and remorse, there was a feeling of release. Behind him sounded the plash of oars; he turned hastily and saw the men had left the sloop and were approaching land. “Oh _Dhia_!” he said to himself, “here’s a bonny business to explain!” and then ’twas very far from well with Morar, for he heard the woman moan her wish for water, and he knew she shared the agony of that inward fire that scorched his throat as if the berries he had swallowed had been beads of heated metal. At his feet was the glass they had drunk from on the last night of their happiness; he picked it up and ran to the well that tinkled on the hillock, then hurried to her side and raised her up to let her drink.
The draught, it seemed, revived her; she shuddered and sighed, and turned in his arms; then his own torment mastered him, and he drank too.
Through his whole flesh went a pleasant chill; a gladness danced in him, and he saw a thing miraculous in his bride—the flush come back to her cheek, and all her wild sweet beauty, and her smile, as she leaned against his shoulder like one new waked from sleep, so that he looked into her face and saw himself reflected in her eyes. The berry stains were on her lips, the bosom of her gown was reddened with their juices, and in between her breasts lay the blade of the shelister, sparkling with dew, and glinting in the sunshine as it rose and fell in time with her heart’s pulsations.
“Oh, love!” she said, and put her arms about his neck, “I dreamt—I dreamt a dreadful dream!”