uccored him to
leave behind the camp comforts to which he had evidently been
accustomed. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding
every objection, and he realized it now.

Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he
neared the top of the promontory. When he reached the summit he stopped
suddenly, and his face set hard as he looked down. Beneath him lay a
strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft white surf, while
beyond the beach there stretched away an empty expanse of slowly heaving
sea. There was no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach.

In another moment or two they went down the slope at a stumbling run,
and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and looked at one
another. There were marks in the sand which showed where a boat had been
drawn up not very long before. The _Selache_ evidently had been there,
and had sailed away again.

Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength seemed
suddenly to melt out of him, and it was several minutes before he looked
up. Gazing out at sea, Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric
figure in his garments of skins. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed
through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of
his feet.

"Well?" Lewson asked harshly.

Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked
desperate, but it must be grappled with.

"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first--what is to
come afterwards I don't quite know." A faint gleam of resolution crept
into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in an inlet down
the coast."

Lewson made a sign of comprehension. "There are four of us. There will
be birds by and by. I can trap things."

He flung himself down near his comrade, and for an hour neither of them
spoke. Wyllard was worn out physically and limp from the last few hours'
mental strain, while Lewson very seldom said more than was absolutely
necessary. They made a very frugal meal, and long afterwards Wyllard was
haunted by the memory of that dreary afternoon during which he lay upon
the shingle watching the slow pulsations of the dim, lifeless sea.

They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a
little depot of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several
days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed
before Overweg reached the appointed meeting-place. The scient