p out along that straight way of escape, and for an
instant he had a yearning to try. Never in his life had he followed a
single course to a definite end, and what could be better now than to
choose one at last, to follow, to go on following--and not to return.

* * * * *

He looked down at his body and saw as a revelation the pitiful wasting
of his strength--how scrawny he was of limb, how bloated about the
middle, and his skin how soft and leprous white. He made an ugly figure
under the clear light of the morning, like the decaying things around
him, where the carrion flies were beginning to swarm in the sun. And
there came upon him then a sudden physical loathing of himself, a final
sense of disaster and defeat.

"If I could only begin again--" thought Junius Peabody, and stopped and
laughed aloud at the wish, which is old as folly and futile as sin. But
he had no relief from laughter either, for it was the same he had just
heard from the Sydney Duck, a sort of hiccup. So he stopped that too and
strode forthright into the wash....

Something flung against his shin and tripped him. He sprawled awkwardly
from a singular impact, soft though quite solid. He could see the object
floating on the next wave and was curious enough to catch it up. It was
a rough lump of some substance, a dirty grayish-brown in color, the size
of a boy's football. The touch of it was rather greasy.

Junius stayed with the trove in his hands and the tingling of an odd
excitement in his mind. His first instinct rejected the evidence. He had
a natural suspicion that events do not happen so. But while he brought
to bear such knowledge as he owned, facts read or heard, he found
himself still thrilled.

There was a sound from the shore and the Sydney Duck hurried up behind
him to the edge of the water, both hands clawed, his little eyes
distended.

"You've got it!" He took two steps after a retreating wave, but the next
drove him hopping. It was strange to see the fellow drawn by a frantic
eagerness and chased again by the merest flicker of foam, lifting his
feet as gingerly as a cat.

"What have I got?" asked Junius, standing at mid-thigh where the surf
creamed in between them.

"It's the stuff! Chuck it over--wha-i-i!" Sydney's voice rose to a
squeal as a frothing ripple caught his toes.

Junius came wading shoreward, but he did not relinquish the lump when
the other felt and paddled it feverishly, babblin