was stiff and
he was absolutely powerless. When he again opened his eyes he was lying
on a grassy sward with spreading green branches above him. For some
minutes he lay perfectly still, dimly sensible that he was alive, but
utterly unable to fix his whereabouts. Through his brain there still
roared the awful waves; in his eyes there still lingered the vision of
the sea as it was when dawn first developed the picture.

Fearing that he could not lift his head, he rose to his trembling elbow.
His wide eyes swept the view before him. There was the sea not two
hundred yards down the slope, rushing and booming upon the stretch of
sand which reached within fifty feet of his grassy bed. Behind him grew
a forest of queer, tropical trees, the like of which he never had seen
before. His jacket had been rolled up as a pillow for his head; his
shoes and stockings were off, his shirt bosom unbuttoned. Two soggy life
preservers lay near by.

At last he caught sight of a woman, alone, forlorn, the picture of
despondency. Far down the beach to his right there rose a rugged, stony
formation, extending into the sea and rising several hundred feet in the
air. At the base of this rocky promontory a multitude of great boulders
lay scattered, some quite large and jagged, others insignificant
in size.

Upon one of the smaller stones, well up the slope, sat the figure of the
woman he had drugged from the sea and whom he had hated with his last
conscious breath. Her head was lying against the sheer wall that ran up
alongside, and he could tell that she was staring out toward the sea,
which roared against the rocks so close by that the spray must have
reached her feet. The distance to this rock was fully three hundred
yards. There was a fascination about her loneliness that held him
immovable for a long time. Finally he struggled to a sitting posture,
faint and dizzy. At the same moment she slowly turned her head and
looked in his direction. Half rising, she made a movement as if to come
toward him, first peering intently. Then she sank back upon the rock and
sent her gaze out to the sea again.

With all the haste he could command he scrambled eagerly toward the
rocks, carrying the crumpled jacket in his hand. Not once did she take
her eyes from the breakers. Tired and faint, he at last came to the edge
of the rocky pile. Here his strength failed him and he sank trembling
with exhaustion upon the first friendly stone, still a hundred feet fr