ows. I tasted
it as I ran. My shirt hung in strips, and one stocking flapped open
on a rip from knee to ankle. But on the farther side of the ridge I
ran no longer. I flung myself and fell through the matted ferns
that, veiling the trough of a half-dry watercourse, now checked my
descent as I clutched at them, now parted and let me drop and bruise
myself on the rocky bottom. In the end, I found myself on soft sand
beside the blessed water of the creek, bloodied indeed--for I had
taken a shrewd knock on the bridge of the nose--but with a wrenched
shoulder and a jarred knee-pan for the worst of my hurts. I valued
them nothing in comparison with the terrors left behind in the woods.
The schooner lay in sight, scarcely half a mile below, and I sobbed
with gratitude as I dipped my face in the tide and washed off its
bloodstains.

The tide was still at flood, and wanted (as I guessed) less than an
hour of high water; but it left an almost continuous stretch of sand
between me and the creek-head, and I found that the short intervals
where it narrowed to nothing could be waded with ease. At first the
curve of the foreshore and the overhanging woods concealed the spit
of beach where I had made fast my punt beside the dinghy; but at the
corner which brought the boats in sight I was aware of two figures
standing beside them--Captain Branscome and Mr. Rogers.

I walked forward hardily enough; I had drunk my fill of terror, and
could have faced the Captain had he been thrice as formidable.
He did not help me at all, but stood with a thunderous frown, very
quiet and self-restrained, while I plodded my way up to him, over the
sand.

I think that, as I drew close, my battered appearance must have
shocked him a little. But his frown did not relax, and the muscles
of his mouth grew, if anything, tenser.

"You appear to have been in the wars," he said quietly.
"Has anything happened to the schooner?"

"No, sir; at least not to my knowledge," was my answer; and he must
have; expected it, or he would have shown more perturbation.
"I saw her, not five minutes ago, lying at her moorings," I added,
with a nod towards the bend of the creek which hid her from us.

"Then why has Miss Belcher sent you?"

"She did not send me, sir."

"In other words, you have chosen to disobey orders?"

I suppose he read some sullenness in my attitude, for he repeated the
words sharply, in a tone that demanded an answer.

"I am sorry, sir; but