d that she had drifted so far until he realized that he
was out of hearing of the sounds from the shore. His own swimming, he
well knew, could never have taken him so far and fast. There was a
little sandy island lying about three hundred yards out. At first he
hoped to strike the shallows near it quickly, but found that the
current of the now receding tide was racing down the channel between the
island and the shore, out to the open sea. That little body was, no
doubt, being sucked outward in this rush of water--out to the wide water
where he could not find her. He told himself this when he found at what
a pace he was going, and knew that his best chance of ever returning was
to swim back again.

So he gave up seeking the little girl, and turned and swam as best he
could against the current, and recognised slowly that he was making no
headway, but by using all his strength could only hold his present place
abreast of the outer point of the island, and a good way from it. The
water was bitterly cold; it chilled him. He was far too much occupied in
fighting the current to think properly, but certain flashes of
intelligence came across his mind concerning the death he might be going
to die. His first clear thoughts were about a black object that was
coming near on the surface of the water. Then a shout reached him, and a
stronger swimmer than he pulled him to the island.

"Now, in the devil's name, Caius Simpson!" The deliverer was the man who
had come over the fence, and he shook himself as he spoke. His words
were an interrogation relating to all that had passed. He was a young
man, about the same age as Caius; the latter knew him well.

"The child, Jim!" shivered Caius hoarsely. "She threw it into the
water!"

"In there?" asked Jim, pointing to the flowing darkness from which they
had just scrambled. He shook his head as he spoke. "There's a sort of a
set the water's got round this here place----" He shook his head again;
he sat half dressed on the edge of the grass, peering into the tide, a
dark figure surrounded by darkness.

It seemed to Caius even then, just pulled out as he was from a sea too
strong for him, that there was something horribly bad and common in that
they two sat there taking breath, and did not plunge again into the
water to try, at least, to find the body of the child who a few minutes
before had lived and breathed so sweetly. Yet they did not move.

"Did someone else come to hold her?" Caius