ed his eyes to watch something which appeared to be crawling
along among the blocks of stone close by, but he could not be sure that
it was anything alive.

"A stone!" he said, and he went on thinking, not liking to draw
attention to what most likely was only imagination. "It would be so
stupid," he said; "and would alarm the brute and keep it from coming, if
I was wrong."

So he sat there, crouched up together, his back against the stone, and
his arms round his knees, which formed a resting-place for his chin,
till quite a couple of hours of watching and listening to the roar of
the wind overhead and the beat of the sea beneath had passed away.

"I wonder how Mr Dallas is," he thought at last; and as the scene in
the rough canvas-covered shelter came to his mind's eye, with the tallow
candle stuck in a corner of the rock, some of its own fat sealing it
there, as they had no candlestick, he saw again the sunken cheeks and
wild, fevered eyes of the wounded man, and pictured his white, cracked
lips, and the tin pannikin of water placed ready on a box by where he
lay.

There was some biscuit too, ready to soak and give him a few bits. He
thought--"I wonder whether that man has given him any."

Another half-hour passed, during which Syd had forgotten everything but
his patient, and at last, full of anxiety, he felt that he must go and
see him.

"No, I will not," he muttered, and he began watching again.

"How contented these sailors are," he said after a time; "how silently
they sit keeping guard. I hope they are not asleep."

He crept softly in the direction where Strake was posted, and as he
neared it he thought to himself that it was a good job he had told the
boatswain not to bring firearms; but as the thought came he oddly enough
regretted it.

"If the brute is dangerous it is not fair to the men. I was wrong. But
they must be all asleep, or they would have heard me."

Click, click!

The cocking of a pistol close by.

"Strake! Don't shoot."

"You, Master Syd!" growled the boatswain, "I thought it was that there
bear. Why, you shouldn't come crawling up like that, sir, I might have
shot at you."

"But I told you not to bring pistols."

"So you did, sir; but as I thought as the brute might stick his teeth
into me, I felt as you wouldn't like me to be hurt, and so I brought
'em. You see, sir, you've only got one bo'sun, and it would be awkward
if I was killed."

"Look here," whispered Syd, "I