back. He remembered that the tide was
going out.

He flung his load aside, and ran down the beach; in a moment he was in
the water. Emmeline, standing up in the boat, watched him.

When she found herself adrift, she had made an effort to row back, and
in her hurry shipping the sculls she had lost one. With a single scull
she was quite helpless, as she had not the art of sculling a boat from
the stern. At first she was not frightened, because she knew that Dick
would soon return to her assistance; but as the distance between boat
and shore increased, a cold hand seemed laid upon her heart. Looking at
the shore it seemed very far away, and the view towards the reef was
terrific, for the opening had increased in apparent size, and the great
sea beyond seemed drawing her to it.

She saw Dick coming out of the wood with the load on his shoulder, and
she called to him. At first he did not seem to hear, then she saw him
look up, cast the bananas away, and come running down the sand to the
water's edge. She watched him swimming, she saw him seize the scull,
and her heart gave a great leap of joy.

Towing the scull and swimming with one arm, he rapidly approached the
boat. He was quite close, only ten feet away, when Emmeline saw behind
him, shearing through the clear rippling water, and advancing with
speed, a dark triangle that seemed made of canvas stretched upon a
sword-point.

Forty years ago he had floated adrift on the sea in the form and
likeness of a small shabby pine-cone, a prey to anything that might
find him. He had escaped the jaws of the dog-fish, and the jaws of the
dog-fish are a very wide door; he had escaped the albicore and squid:
his life had been one long series of miraculous escapes from death. Out
of a billion like him born in the same year, he and a few others only
had survived.

For thirty years he had kept the lagoon to himself, as a ferocious
tiger keeps a jungle. He had known the palm tree on the reef when it
was a seedling, and he had known the reef even before the palm tree was
there. The things he had devoured, flung one upon another, would have
made a mountain; yet he was as clear of enmity as a sword, as cruel and
as soulless. He was the spirit of the lagoon.

Emmeline screamed, and pointed to the thing behind the swimmer. He
turned, saw it, dropped the oar and made for the boat. She had seized
the remaining scull and stood with it poised, then she hurled it blade
foremost at the form