She shook her head.  “Stand still!” she commanded.

He was bending forward with his elbows on the rail.  Suddenly, with something like a stifled sob, she caught his head in both arms and held him close, so close that he heard her heart pounding and her breath coming with spasmodic gasps.  He put out his arms, but she held him off.

“No, no; don’t touch me now—­only listen!”

He waited a moment before she spoke again.

“You said I was your prisoner.”  Her voice dropped in a tremor as though the tears would prevail, but she steadied it and went on.  “I wish I were.  Always I am your prisoner, but I must go back.  It is because it is written.”

He straightened up and took her in his arms.  “I know how you have settled it,” he said, “but I have stolen you.  The anchor is coming up.  You love me—­I have claimed what is mine.  It is now beyond your power, your responsibility.”

“No, it is not,” she softly denied.  “I will not marry you—­but I love you—­I love you!”

“You mean that if I hold you my prisoner you will still not be my wife?” he incredulously demanded.

Slowly she nodded her head.

The man gazed off with the eyes of one stunned and slowly fought himself back into control before he trusted his voice.  After a while, he raised his face and spoke in fragmentary sentences, his voice pitched low, his words broken.

“But you said—­just now—­back there on the road—­you wished someone stronger than yourself—­would take you away somewhere—­beyond the Milky Way.”

His tones strengthened and suddenly he almost sang out with recovered resolution, speaking buoyantly and triumphantly.

“Dearest, I am stronger than you, and I’m going to take you away—­I’m going to take you beyond the Milky Way, to the uttermost stars of Love.  How can it matter to me how far, if you are there?”

Again she shook her head.

“No, dear,” she whispered, “you are not so strong as I, in this, because I am strong enough to say No when my heart says only Yes—­and because Fate is stronger than any of us.”

“Boat ahoy!” came a voice from the crow’s nest.

“They have come for you,” he said, speaking as through a fog.  “Show them here,” he shouted to an officer who was hurrying to the gangway.

Two figures came over the side, and slowly followed the first officer forward.  One was a Capuchin monk, bearing himself rigidly; at his side strode a Bedouin, bedraggled, but erect and military of bearing.  The original Arab turned with a sudden sag of the shoulders and looked helplessly out at the path of silver that stretched across the water below, to the moon, now sunk close to the horizon.  He waved one hand in a gesture of submission and despair, and stood silent.

The gipsy girl, standing near, took a sudden step forward and stood close to him us the others approached.

“They may take me back if they wish to, now,” she said, with a suddenly upflaring defiance.  “But they shall find me like this!” And she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him.