and about the log, his legs kicking lustily like the legs of
a frog, his right hand paddling desperately for stability, Aladdin
disappeared into the fog. After a few minutes he became so freezing cold
that he would have let go and drowned gladly if it had not been for the
wonderful lamp which had been lighted in his heart.

Margaret, when she saw him borne from her by the irresistible current,
cried out with all the illogic of her womanly little soul, "Come back,
'Laddin, come back!" and sank sobbing upon the empty shore.

IV

However imminent the peril of the man, it is the better part of
chivalry to remain by the distressed lady, and though impotent to be of
assistance, we must linger near Margaret, and watch her gradually rise
from prone sobbing to a sitting attitude of tears. For a long time she
sat crying on the empty shore, regarding for the most part black life
and not at all the signs of cheerful change which were becoming evident
in the atmosphere about her. The cold breath across her face and hands
and needling through her shivering body, the increasing sounds of
treetops in commotion, the recurring appearance of branches where before
had been only an opaque vault, did little to inform her that the fog was
about to lift. The rising wind merely made her the more miserable and
alone. Nor was it until a disk of gold smote suddenly on the rock before
her that she looked up and beheld a twinkle of blue sky. The fog
puffed across the blue, the blue looked down again,--a bigger eye than
before,--a wisp of fog filmed it again, and again it gleamed out, ever
larger and always more blue. The good wind living far to the south had
heard that in a few days a little girl was to be alone and comfortless
upon a foggy island, and, hearing, had filled his vast chest with warmth
and sunshine, and puffed out his merry cheeks and blown. The great
breath sent the blue waves thundering upon the coral beaches of Florida,
tore across the forests of palm and set them all waving hilariously,
shook the merry orange-trees till they rattled, whistled through the
dismal swamps of Georgia, swept, calling and shouting to itself, over
the Carolinas, where clouds were hatching in men's minds, banked up the
waters of the Chesapeake so that there was a great high tide and the
ducks were sent scudding to the decoys of the nearest gunner, went
roaring into the oaks and hickories of New York, warmed the veins of New
England fruit-trees, a