ry near, so near, indeed, the bird made up
its mind to try to reach it. It looked at the man for a moment and then
flew away. Long he watched it, a little dark spot--now that he could no
longer see the ruby on its breast! At length it was lost to sight;
swallowed up by the green blur.

The small winged creature gone, the man missed it. "'Peared like 'twas
glad to leave such a pal!" he thought regretfully. The floating timbers
became well-nigh intolerable; he kept asking himself if he could swim to
land, but, knowing his weakness from long fasting, he curbed his
impatience. His eyes grew tired with staring at the longed-for spot; he
suffered the torments of Tantalus, and finally could endure them no
longer. So making his clothes into a bundle, he tied them around his
neck and slipped into the water.

Half an hour later found him, prone and exhausted, on the yellow sands.
Near-by, tall and stately trees nodded at him; close at hand a great
crab regarded him with reflective interest, hesitating between prudence
and carnivorous desire. Gluttonous inclination to sample the goods the
gods had provided prevailed over caution; it moved quickly forward, when
what it had considered only an unexpected and welcome _piece de
resistance_ abruptly got up. The tables were turned; that which came to
dine was dined upon; a crushing blow demonstrated the law of the
survival of the fittest; the weaker adorned the board. The man tore it
to bits, ate it like the famished animal he was. More freely his blood
coursed; he looked around; saw other creatures and laughed. There seemed
little occasion for any one to starve here; the isle, a beautiful
emerald on the breast of the sea, became a fair battle-ground; all he
needed was a club and he soon found that.

For a week nothing of moment interrupted the even tenor of his
existence; he led the life of a savage and found it to his liking,
pounced upon turtles and cooked them, kept his fire going because he had
but few matches. Lying before the blaze at night, near a little spring,
he told himself that this was better than being behind prison bars;
true, he lacked company, but he had known worse solitude--the
"solitary." In it, he had lain on the hard stones; here he had soft
moss. If only he could reach out and touch those he hated--the unknown
enemy whose face had bent over him a fleeting instant ere he had struck
his hand from the gunwale; Dandy Joe and the police agent--if only they,
too, wer