ing animation, but at last his
efforts were rewarded by a slight tremor of the half-closed lids. He
chafed the thin hands, and forced a few more drops of water into the
parched throat. The girl opened her eyes, looking up at him for a long
time before she could recall her surroundings.

"Water?" she whispered. "Are we saved?"

"It is raining," he explained. "We may at least drink. Already it has
revived us both."

"Monsieur Thuran?" she asked. "He did not kill you. Is he dead?"

"I do not know," replied Clayton. "If he lives and this rain revives
him--" But he stopped there, remembering too late that he must not add
further to the horrors which the girl already had endured.

But she guessed what he would have said.

"Where is he?" she asked.

Clayton nodded his head toward the prostrate form of the Russian. For
a time neither spoke.

"I will see if I can revive him," said Clayton at length.

"No," she whispered, extending a detaining hand toward him. "Do not do
that--he will kill you when the water has given him strength. If he is
dying, let him die. Do not leave me alone in this boat with that
beast."

Clayton hesitated. His honor demanded that he attempt to revive
Thuran, and there was the possibility, too, that the Russian was beyond
human aid. It was not dishonorable to hope so. As he sat fighting out
his battle he presently raised his eyes from the body of the man, and
as they passed above the gunwale of the boat he staggered weakly to his
feet with a little cry of joy.

"Land, Jane!" he almost shouted through his cracked lips. "Thank God,
land!"

The girl looked, too, and there, not a hundred yards away, she saw a
yellow beach, and, beyond, the luxurious foliage of a tropical jungle.

"Now you may revive him," said Jane Porter, for she, too, had been
haunted with the pangs of conscience which had resulted from her
decision to prevent Clayton from offering succor to their companion.

It required the better part of half an hour before the Russian evinced
sufficient symptoms of returning consciousness to open his eyes, and it
was some time later before they could bring him to a realization of
their good fortune. By this time the boat was scraping gently upon the
sandy bottom.

Between the refreshing water that he had drunk and the stimulus of
renewed hope, Clayton found strength to stagger through the shallow
water to the shore with a line made fast to the boat's bow. This he
fa