was sealed in the very moment of its apparent
victory over the elements!

A return wave--curling under from the base of the headland, against
whose adamant wall it had hurled itself aloft, in the vain attempt to
scale the cliff--falling back angrily in a whirling whish of foam,
struck the frail craft fair on the quarter. The shock turned her over
instantly, when she rolled bottom upwards over and over again. The sea
then hurled her with the force of a catapult upon the rocks that jutted
out below the headland; and Fritz and Eric were at once pitched out into
the seething surf that eddied around, battling for their lives.

How they managed it, neither could afterwards tell; but they must have
struck out so vigorously with their arms and legs at this perilous
moment, in the agony of desperation, that, somehow or other, they
succeeded in getting beyond the downward suction of the undertow
immediately under the overhanging headland. Otherwise, they would have
shared the fate of the boat, for their bodies would have been dashed to
pieces against the cruel crags.

Providentially, however, the strength of the struggling strokes of both
the young fellows just carried them, beyond the reach of the back-wash
of the current, out amidst the rolling waves that swept into the bay
from the open in regular succession; and so, first Eric and then Fritz
found themselves washed up on the old familiar beach, which they had
never expected to set foot on again alive.

Here, scrambling up on their hands and knees, they quickly gained the
refuge of the shingle, where they were out of reach of the clutching
billows that tried to pull them back.

As for the boat, it was smashed into matchwood on the jagged edges of
the boulders, not a fragment of timber a foot long being to be seen.

The brothers had escaped by almost a miracle!

"That was a narrow squeak," cried Eric, when he was able to speak and
saw that Fritz was also safe.

"Yes, thank God for it!" replied the other. "I had utterly given up
hope."

"So had I; but still, here we are."

"Aye, but only through the merciful interposition of a watchful Hand,"
said Fritz; and then both silently made their way up the incline to
their little hut by the waterfall, unspeakably grateful that they were
allowed to behold it again.

Never had the cottage seemed to their tired eyes more homelike and
welcome than now; and they were glad enough to throw themselves in bed
and have some nec