tide. This, necessarily a slow process,
he found to be not altogether so difficult, and though there was no
choice of a landing-place--the objects on shore passing by him in a
sad and slow procession--he perceptibly approached the extremity of a
spit of land yet further to the right, now well defined against the
sunny portion of the horizon. While the swimmer's eye's were fixed
upon the spit as his only means of salvation on this side of the
Unknown, a moving object broke the outline of the extremity, and
immediately a ship's boat appeared manned with several sailor lads,
her bows towards the sea.

All Troy's vigour spasmodically revived to prolong the struggle yet a
little further. Swimming with his right arm, he held up his left to
hail them, splashing upon the waves, and shouting with all his might.
From the position of the setting sun his white form was distinctly
visible upon the now deep-hued bosom of the sea to the east of the
boat, and the men saw him at once. Backing their oars and putting
the boat about, they pulled towards him with a will, and in five or
six minutes from the time of his first halloo, two of the sailors
hauled him in over the stern.

They formed part of a brig's crew, and had come ashore for sand.
Lending him what little clothing they could spare among them as a
slight protection against the rapidly cooling air, they agreed to
land him in the morning; and without further delay, for it was
growing late, they made again towards the roadstead where their
vessel lay.

And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in front;
and at no great distance from them, where the shoreline curved round,
and formed a long riband of shade upon the horizon, a series of
points of yellow light began to start into existence, denoting the
spot to be the site of Budmouth, where the lamps were being lighted
along the parade. The cluck of their oars was the only sound of any
distinctness upon the sea, and as they laboured amid the thickening
shades the lamp-lights grew larger, each appearing to send a flaming
sword deep down into the waves before it, until there arose, among
other dim shapes of the kind, the form of the vessel for which they
were bound.

CHAPTER XLVIII

DOUBTS ARISE--DOUBTS LINGER

Bathsheba underwent the enlargement of her husband's absence from
hours to days with a slight feeling of surprise, and a slight feeling
of relief; yet neither sensation rose at any time far