Then the whole party ascended the hill to the opposite side of the promontory where the sea was beating furiously.  Fernando was almost beside himself with joy to find Morgianna clinging to his arm in the ascent, and to hear her sweet voice in low, gentle tones breathing in his ear.  It was a fine, clear night, and for all her lowness of spirits, Morgianna kept looking up at the stars in a manner so bewitching that Fernando was clear out of his senses, and plainly showed that, if ever a man were over head and ears in love, that man was himself.  The path they were ascending was quite steep, and Fernando could not help glancing at the pretty little hand, encased in a cream-colored kid glove, resting on his arm.  If Fernando had known that an executioner were behind him with an axe raised, ready to cut off his head if he touched that hand, he could not have helped doing it.  From putting his own right hand upon it as if by chance, and taking it away again after a minute or so, and then putting it back again, he got to walking along without taking it off at all, as if he, the escort, were bound to do that as an important duty, and had come for that purpose.  The most curious thing about this little incident was, that Morgianna did not seem to know it.  She looked so innocent and unconscious when she turned her eyes on Fernando, that it was quite provoking.

She talked about the sea, the hills, the rocks, the sky, the stars, while the old men went on ahead, and when she slipped on the verge of a precipice three feet high and came near falling into a pool of dirty water, and he saved her from the fall by his coolness and daring, she thanked him and told him how grateful she was that he was near, and he said something about how happy he would be to be always near her, to guard her footsteps along life’s rugged pathway.  Then she said something to the effect that it would be pleasant if one could always have one’s friends near, and that she hoped they would always be friends from that time forth.  And when Fernando said, “not friends” he hoped, Morgianna was quite surprised and said not enemies she hoped; and when Fernando suggested that they might be something better than either, Morgianna, all of a sudden, found a star, which was brighter than all the other stars, and begged to call his attention to the same, and was ten times more innocent and unconscious than ever.

In this way, they journeyed up the steep ascent, talking very little above a whisper, and wishing that the promontory was a dozen times higher—­at least, such was Fernando’s wish—­when they finally reached the top and saw the two old men under the lee cliff listening to the ocean’s hollow roar.

Fernando carried a robe and some wraps for Morgianna, and he conducted her to a sheltered spot below the first ledge of rocks, where he spread a robe for her to sit on, and then, with loving fingers that thrilled with each touch, adjusted the wraps about her shapely little shoulders.  For a long time they sat listening to the wild roar of the angry waters below, gazing on the phosphorescent flashes, where the swelling waves broke in crested splendor on the well-worn rocks.