rds the town. Our tent was on the river-side.
Though the Dolphin was also on the same side, she lay out of sight by
the beach at the farther extremity of the island.

Binny Wallace had been absent five or six minutes when we heard him
calling our several names in tones that indicated distress or surprise,
we could not tell which. Our first thought was, "The boat has broken
adrift!"

We sprung to our feet and hastened down to the beach. On turning the
bluff which hid the mooring-place from our view, we found the conjecture
correct. Not only was the Dolphin afloat, but poor little Binny Wallace
was standing in the bows with his arms stretched helplessly towards
us--drifting out to sea!

"Head the boat inshore!" shouted Phil Adams.

Wallace ran to the tiller; but the slight cockle-shell merely swung
round and drifted broadside on. Oh, if we had but left a single scull in
the Dolphin!

"Can you swim it?" cried Adams desperately, using his hand as a
speaking-trumpet, for the distance between the boat and the island
widened momently.

Binny Wallace looked down at the sea, which was covered with white caps,
and made a despairing gesture. He knew, and we knew, that the stoutest
swimmer could not live forty seconds in those angry waters.

A wild, insane light came into Phil Adam's eyes, as he stood knee-deep
in the boiling surf, and for an instant I think he meditated plunging
into the ocean after the receding boat.

The sky darkened, and an ugly look stole rapidly over the broken surface
of the sea.

Binny Wallace half rose from his seat in the stern, and waved his hand
to us in token of farewell. In spite of the distance, increasing every
moment, we could see his face plainly. The anxious expression it wore
at first had passed. It was pale and meek now, and I love to think there
was a kind of halo about it, like that which painters place around the
forehead of a saint. So he drifted away.

The sky grew darker and darker. It was only by straining our eyes
through the unnatural twilight that we could keep the Dolphin in sight.
The figure of Binny Wallace was no longer visible, for the boat itself
had dwindled to a mere white dot on the black water. Now we lost it, and
our hearts stopped throbbing; and now the speck appeared again, for an
instant, on the crest of a high wave.

Finally it went out like a spark, and we saw it no more. Then we gazed
at one another, and dared not speak.

Absorbed in following the cour