econd before it sank. The second
leap was short. It was difficult, nevertheless, for two reasons. He
had no time to gather himself for the impulse, and his flight was
taken from sinking ground. Almost he fell short. Six inches less, and
he would have landed on the edge of the cake and toppled back into the
sea when it tipped to the sudden weight. But he struck near enough
to the center to restrain the ice, in a few active steps, from sinking
by the edge; and as the second cake was more substantial than the
first, he was able to leap with confidence for the third, whence he
danced lightly toward the fourth.

[Illustration: "Well, I'm off, whatever comes of it."]

The fourth cake, however, lay abruptly to the right. A sudden violent
turn was required to reach it. It was comparatively substantial; but
it was rugged rather than flat--there was a niggardly, treacherous
surface for landing, and as ground for a flight the cake furnished a
doubtful opportunity. There was no time for recovery. When Tommy Lark
landed, the ice began to waver and sink. He had landed awkwardly, his
feet in a tangle; and, as there was no time for placing his feet in a
better way, he must leap awkwardly--leap instantly, leaving the event
to chance. And leap he did. It was a supreme effort toward the fifth
cake.

By this time the ice was fast climbing the side of a swelling wave.
The crest of the sea was higher than Tommy Lark's head. Had the sea
broken it would have fallen on him--it would have submerged and
overwhelmed him. It did not break. The wind snatched a thin spindrift
from the crest and flung it past like a squall of rain. That was all.
Tommy Lark was midway of the sea, as a man might be on the side of a
steep hill: there was the crest above and the trough below; and the
fifth cake of ice was tipped to an increasingly perilous angle.
Moreover, it was small; it was the least of all--a momentary foothold,
to be touched lightly in passing on to the slant of the wide pan in
the middle of the lane.

All this was clear to Tommy Lark when he took his awkward leap from
the fourth cake. What he feared was less the meager proportions of the
fifth cake--which would be sufficient, he fancied, to give him an
impulse for the last leap--than the slant of the big pan to which he
was bound, which was precisely as steep as the wave it was climbing.
And this fear was justified by the event. Tommy Lark touched the
little cake with the toe of his seal-hid