y white-liver of 'em, from Tom's to
Barnegat," gasped Bowlegs, struggling against the surf.

She was wrestling for life with Death itself; but the quiet, tender
smile did not leave her face.

"My God! ef I cud pull as when I was a gell!" she muttered. "Derrick,
I'm comin'! I'm comin', boy!"

The salt spray wet their little fire of logs, beside which Snap sat
crying,--put it out at last, leaving a heap of black cinders. The night
fell heavier and cold; boat and schooner alike were long lost and gone
in outer darkness. As they wandered up and down, chilled and hopeless,
they could not see each other's faces,--only the patch of white sand at
their feet. When they shouted, no gun or cry answered them again. All
was silence, save the awful beat of the surf upon the shore, going on
forever with its count, count of the hours until the time when the sea
shall at last give up its dead.

* * * * *

Ben Van Note did not run the Chief in near shore purposely; but the fog
was dense, and Ben was a better sailor than pilot. He took the wheel
himself about an hour before they struck,--the two or three other men at
their work on deck, with haggard, anxious faces, and silent: it is not
the manner of these Jersey coast-men to chatter in heavy weather.

Philbrick, Doctor Bowdler's boy, lounged beside Ben, twisting a greasy
lantern: "a town-bred fellow," Ben said; "put him in mind of young, rank
cheese."

"You'd best keep a sharp eye, Van Note," he said; "this is a dirty bit
of water, and you've two great men aboard: one patcher of the body, t'
other of the soul."

"I vally my own neck more than either," growled Ben, and after a while
forced himself to add, "_He_'s no backbone,--the little fellow with your
master, I mean."

"Umph!" superciliously, "I'd like to see the 'little fellow' making neat
bits out of that carcass of yours! His dainty white fingers carve off a
fellow's legs and arms, caring no more than if they were painting
flowers. He is a neat flower-painter, Dr. Birkenshead; moulds in clay,
too."

He stared as Van Note burst into a coarse guffaw.

"Flower-painter, eh? Well, well, young man. You'd best go below. It's
dirtier water than you think."

Doctors Bowdler and Birkenshead were down in the little cabin, reading
by the dull light of a coal-oil lamp. When the vessel began to toss so
furiously, the elder man rose and paced fussily to and fro, rubbing his
fingers through his iron-gr