push off and then spring himself. With the sagacity of
their race, the dogs now seemed aware that they were in the very instant
of being deserted upon a barren strand. The gunwales of the boat were
high; its prow--presented inland--was lifted; so owing to the water,
which they seemed instinctively to shun, the dogs could not well leap
into the little craft. But their busy paws hard scraped the prow, as it
had been some farmer's door shutting them out from shelter in a winter
storm. A clamorous agony of alarm. They did not howl, or whine; they all
but spoke.

"Push off! Give way!" cried the mate. The boat gave one heavy drag and
lurch, and next moment shot swiftly from the beach, turned on her heel,
and sped. The dogs ran howling along the water's marge; now pausing to
gaze at the flying boat, then motioning as if to leap in chase, but
mysteriously withheld themselves; and again ran howling along the beach.
Had they been human beings, hardly would they have more vividly inspired
the sense of desolation. The oars were plied as confederate feathers of
two wings. No one spoke. I looked back upon the beach, and then upon
Hunilla, but her face was set in a stern dusky calm. The dogs crouching
in her lap vainly licked her rigid hands. She never looked be her: but
sat motionless, till we turned a promontory of the coast and lost all
sights and sounds astern. She seemed as one who, having experienced the
sharpest of mortal pangs, was henceforth content to have all lesser
heartstrings riven, one by one. To Hunilla, pain seemed so necessary,
that pain in other beings, though by love and sympathy made her own, was
unrepiningly to be borne. A heart of yearning in a frame of steel. A
heart of earthly yearning, frozen by the frost which falleth from the
sky.

The sequel is soon told. After a long passage, vexed by calms and
baffling winds, we made the little port of Tombez in Peru, there to
recruit the ship. Payta was not very distant. Our captain sold the
tortoise oil to a Tombez merchant; and adding to the silver a
contribution from all hands, gave it to our silent passenger, who knew
not what the mariners had done.

The last seen of lone Hunilla she was passing into Payta town, riding
upon a small gray ass; and before her on the ass's shoulders, she eyed
the jointed workings of the beast's armorial cross.

* * * * *

SKETCH NINTH.

HOOD'S ISLE AND THE HERMIT OBERLUS.

"That darkesome glen t