was his
dismay at seeing it gracefully pass beyond the outer edge of the
island, turn behind it, and vanish. He struck the taffrail furiously
with his clenched hand. However, there was no help for it; so,
changing his course, he steered in a straight line after the other,
to where it had disappeared.

Now that the boat was out of sight Dick did not feel himself called
on to watch. So he went forward into the bow, and made himself a snug
berth, where he laid down; and lighting his pipe, looked dreamily out
through a cloud of smoke upon the charming scene. The tossing of the
boat and the lazy flapping of the sails had a soothing influence. His
nerves owned the lulling power. His eyelids grew heavy and gently
descended.

The wind and waves and islands and sea and sky, all mingled together
in a confused mass, came before his mind. He was sailing on clouds,
and chasing Spanish ladies through the sky. The drifting currents of
the air bore them resistlessly along in wide and never-ending curves
upward in spiral movements towards the zenith; and then off in
ever-increasing speed, with ever-widening gyrations, toward the
sunset, where the clouds grew red, and lazaroni grinned from behind--

A sudden bang of the huge sail struck by the wind, a wild creaking
of the boom, and a smart dash of spray over the bows and into his
face waked him from his slumber. He started up, half blinded, to
look around. Buttons sat gazing over the waters with an expression
of bitter vexation. They had passed the outer point of the island,
and had caught a swift current, a chopping sea, and a brisk breeze.
The other boat was nowhere to be seen. Buttons had already headed back
again.

"I don't see the other boat," said Dick. Buttons without a word
pointed to the left. There she was. She had gone quietly around the
island, and had taken the channel between it and the shore. All the
time that she had been hidden she was steadily increasing the distance
between them.

"There's no help for it," said Dick, "but to keep straight after
them."

Buttons did not reply, but leaned back with a sweet expression of
patience. The two boats kept on in this way for a long time; but
the one in which our friends had embarked was no match at all for
the one they were pursuing. At every new tack this fact became more
painfully evident. The only hope for Buttons was to regain by his
superior nautical skill what he might lose. Those in the other boat
had but little