pe which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp
this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if he
feel not he reads in vain.

--"The ship sails this day, to-day," at last said Hunilla to herself;
"this gives me certain time to stand on; without certainty I go mad. In
loose ignorance I have hoped and hoped; now in firm knowledge I will but
wait. Now I live and no longer perish in bewilderings. Holy Virgin, aid
me! Thou wilt waft back the ship. Oh, past length of weary weeks--all to
be dragged over--to buy the certainty of to-day, I freely give ye,
though I tear ye from me!"

As mariners, tost in tempest on some desolate ledge, patch them a boat
out of the remnants of their vessel's wreck, and launch it in the
self-same waves, see here Hunilla, this lone shipwrecked soul, out of
treachery invoking trust. Humanity, thou strong thing, I worship thee,
not in the laureled victor, but in this vanquished one.

Truly Hunilla leaned upon a reed, a real one; no metaphor; a real
Eastern reed. A piece of hollow cane, drifted from unknown isles, and
found upon the beach, its once jagged ends rubbed smoothly even as by
sand-paper; its golden glazing gone. Long ground between the sea and
land, upper and nether stone, the unvarnished substance was filed bare,
and wore another polish now, one with itself, the polish of its agony.
Circular lines at intervals cut all round this surface, divided it into
six panels of unequal length. In the first were scored the days, each
tenth one marked by a longer and deeper notch; the second was scored for
the number of sea-fowl eggs for sustenance, picked out from the rocky
nests; the third, how many fish had been caught from the shore; the
fourth, how many small tortoises found inland; the fifth, how many days
of sun; the sixth, of clouds; which last, of the two, was the greater
one. Long night of busy numbering, misery's mathematics, to weary her
too-wakeful soul to sleep; yet sleep for that was none.

The panel of the days was deeply worn--the long tenth notches half
effaced, as alphabets of the blind. Ten thousand times the longing widow
had traced her finger over the bamboo--dull flute, which played, on,
gave no sound--as if counting birds flown by in air would hasten
tortoises creeping through the woods.

After the one hundred and eightieth day no further mark was seen; that
last one was the faintest, as the first the deepest.

"There were more days," said our Captain; "many,