mmer, and it was rather a shock to him to find how difficult it was
even to keep afloat. He realized how valueless a casual knowledge of
swimming would be for use in the open sea.

He had not been more than half an hour in the water when his strength
began to fail. He swam around expecting to find some piece of wreckage
which would aid him, but not a thing could he see. His arms grew heavy
and his feet hung down as though leaded weights were fastened to them.
Black spots began to dance before his eyes, and Roote's weight became a
torture. But he still hung on and kept afloat.

An hour passed of buffeting with the sea, and the boy began to grow
light-headed. He had swallowed quite a little salt water, and presently
he began singing, although he had a feeling as though a double self told
him not to sing. A choking took his throat and startled him into full
consciousness. He had nearly been down that time! But the training of
years stood him in good stead now that he needed it, and he still swam
on.

Then he began to dream. Once or twice he came to himself and smiled
sadly to think that this was the end of all his hopes in the Bureau of
Fisheries, but this consciousness did not last for more than a minute
before he fell dreaming again, still, however, swimming heavily and
keeping afloat. And it seemed to him that the last and the most real of
his dreams was that a boat came by. But this, he thought, must be
drowning and it was not hard to drown, to dream of being rescued and to
go down, down, down, to the cold, strange tideless depths of sea from
which no one ever comes up alive. Still, there was the boat in his
dream, but it had come too late, and it seemed to Colin, that with his
last effort he pushed Roote toward the outstretched arms of the men in
the boat, waved a feeble farewell and sank. The water gurgled in his
ears, there was a horrible strangulation, he tried to cry out, his lungs
filled with water, and he knew no more.

Hours passed. Then, with a sense of suddenly arriving from a far-off
place, Colin opened his eyes. He was in the cabin of a ship, and despite
his exhaustion, he tried to rouse himself at the sound of voices. Roote,
and another man, the captain of the bark, were standing beside his bunk.

"He's a plucky youngster, as well as a great swimmer," he heard the
captain say. "Who is he?"

And Colin heard the other reply, with a note of pride in his voice:

"That's Colin Dare. He's one of our men.