tched her with an admiring eye; and well he might, for it was the
very poetry of motion. Hazel in his hours of health had almost given up
walking; he ran from point to point, without fatigue or shortness of
breath. Helen, equally pressed for time, did not run; but she went almost
as fast. By rising with the dawn, by three meals a day of animal food, by
constant work, and heavenly air, she was in a condition women rarely
attain to. She was _trained._ Ten miles was no more to her than ten
yards. And, when she was in a hurry, she got over the ground by a grand
but feminine motion not easy to describe. It was a series of smooth
undulations, not vulgar strides, but swift rushes, in which the loins
seemed to propel the whole body, and the feet scarcely to touch the
ground. It was the vigor and freedom of a savage, with the grace of a
lady.

And so it was she swept across the sands and up the slope,

_"Et vera incessu patuit Dea."_

While she was gone, Hazel cut two little squares of seals' bladder, one
larger than the other. On the smaller he wrote: "An English lady wrecked
on an island. W. longitude 103 deg. 30 min., S. latitude between the 33d
and 26th parallels. Haste to her rescue." Then he folded this small, and
inclosed it in the larger slip, which he made into a little bag, and tied
the neck extremely tight with fine gut, leaving a long piece of the gut
free.

And now Helen came gliding back, as she went, and brought him a large
bundle of rushes.

Then he asked her to help him fasten these rushes round the iron hoop.

"It must not be done too regularly," said he; "but so as to look as much
like a little bed of rushes as possible."

Helen was puzzled still, but interested. So she set to work, and, between
them, they fastened rushes all round the hoop, although it was a large
one.

But, when it was done, Hazel said they were too bare.

"Then we will fasten another row," said Helen, good-humoredly. And,
without more ado, she was off to the river again.

When she came back, she found him up, and he said the great excitement
had cured him--such power has the brain over the body. This convinced her
he had really hit upon some great idea. And, when she had made him eat
his dinner by her fire, she asked him to tell her all about it.

But, by a natural reaction, the glorious and glowing excitement of mind
that had battled his very rheumatic pains was now followed by doubt and
dejection.

"Don't ask me yet," he