, having thus
delivered himself, he snapped himself up and snapped himself off in a
great hurry; but, as the little fellow turned to go away, I thought I
saw great big tears stealing down his cheeks. I thought that his voice
trembled over the last words; and when he went behind a rock and hid
himself, I knew that he had gone away to cry, and that he had been
ashamed to cry where I could see him.

"After a while I went to him. He was lying on his side, with his head
upon his arm. His cap had fallen off, and the light wind was playing
gently with his curly hair. The sun was shining brightly in his face,
and, sunburnt and weather-beaten though it was, his rosy cheeks were the
same as ever. But bitter, scalding tears had left their traces there,
for the poor boy had cried himself to sleep.

"His sleep was troubled, for he was calling out, and his hands and feet
were twitching now and then, and cruel dreams were weighing on his
sleeping, even more heavily, perhaps, than they had been upon his waking
thoughts. So I awoke him. He sprang up instantly, looking very wild, and
sat upon the rock. 'Where am I? What's the matter? Is that you, Hardy?'
were the questions with which he greeted me so quickly that I could not
answer one of them. Then he smiled in his natural way, and said, 'After
all, it was only a dream.'

"'What was it?' I asked. 'Tell me, Dean, what it was.'

"'O, it was not much, but you see it put me in a dreadful fright. I
thought a ship was steering close in by the land; I thought I saw you
spring upon the deck and sail away; and as you sailed away upon the
silvery sea, I thought you turned and mocked me, and I cursed you as I
stood upon the beach, until some foul fiend, in punishment for my wicked
words, caught me by the neck, and dragged me through the sea, and tied
me fast to the vessel's keel, and there I was with his last words
ringing in my ears, with the gurgling waters, "Follow him to your doom,"
when you awoke me. "Follow him to your doom!" I seem to hear the demon
shrieking even now, though I'm wide enough awake.'

"'I don't wonder at your fright, and I'm glad I woke you!' said I, not
knowing what else to say.

"'It all comes,' went on the little fellow, 'of my being angry with you,
Hardy'; and so he asked me to forgive him, and not think badly of him,
and said he would not be so ungrateful any more, and many such things,
which it pained me very much to have him say; and so I made him stop,
and the