ope to linger, and struggles on while a
particle of life or of strength remains. So, as he toiled on, and
fought on, against this fate which had suddenly fixed itself upon him,
he saw the shores on either side recede, and knew that every passing
moment was bearing him on to a wide, a cruel, and a perilous sea. He
took one hasty glance behind him, and saw what he knew to be the mouth
of the river close at hand; and beyond this a waste of waters was
hidden in the gloom of night. The sight lent new energy to his
fainting limbs. He called aloud for help. Shriek after shriek burst
from him, and rang wildly, piercingly, thrillingly upon the air of
night. But those despairing shrieks came to no human ear, and met with
no response. They died away upon the wind and the waters; and the
fierce tide, with swifter flow, bore him onward.

The last headland swept past him; the river and the river bank were now
lost to him. Around him the expanse of water grew darker, and broader,
and more terrible. Above him the stars glimmered more faintly from the
sky. But the very habit of exertion still remained, and his faint
plunges still dipped the little board into the water; and a vague idea
of saving himself was still uppermost in his mind. Deep down in that
stout heart of his was a desperate resolution never to give up while
strength lasted; and well he sustained that determination. Over him
the mist came floating, borne along by the wind which sighed around
him; and that mist gradually overspread the scene upon which his
straining eyes were fastened. It shut out the overhanging sky. It
extinguished the glimmering stars. It threw a veil over the receding
shores. It drew its folds around him closer and closer, until at last
everything was hidden from view. Closer and still closer came the
mist, and thicker and ever thicker grew its dense folds, until at last
even the water, into which he still thrust his frail paddle, was
invisible. At length his strength failed utterly. His hands refused
any longer to perform their duty. The strong, indomitable will
remained, but the power of performing the dictates of that will was
gone. He fell back upon the sail that lay in the bottom of the boat,
and the board fell from his hands.

And now there gathered around the prostrate figure of the lost boy all
the terrors of thickest darkness. The fog came, together with the
night, shrouding all things from view, and he was floating over a