rouble," answered the old man, who was standing with the
girl in the open doorway. He held a lamp above his head, and was peering
anxiously in the direction of the splashings and flounderings that Winn,
sitting in the shallow water, but tightly wedged between the log and the
boat, was making in his efforts to extricate himself.

"Who's there?" cried the old man, who could not yet make out what was
taking place; "and what are you doing?"

[Illustration: "'Who's there?' cried the old man"]

"It's me!" returned Winn, regardless of his grammar; "and I am sinking in
this awful mud. Hurry up and push your boat away from the log, or I
shall be drowned!"

While the old man and the negro exerted all their strength at the pole,
with which they finally succeeded in pushing the boat a foot or so out
into the stream, Sabella was also busy. Though greatly excited, and
somewhat alarmed by the unexpected appearance of a human being in that
place, and his perilous situation, she still had presence of mind enough
to run for a rope, one end of which she fastened to the table. She
carried the other end out through the door, and tossed it over the side
just in time for Winn to catch it, as the moving of the boat once more
gave him freedom of action.

Hauling himself up by this welcome rope, and at the same time being
assisted by the two men, the boy quickly gained the open doorway, where
he stood blinking in the bright lamplight, while mud and water ran from
him in streams. He faced the occupants of the boat, who, standing a few
steps back in the room, regarded him with undisguised wonder, not unmixed
with suspicion. On the table behind them stood a small, gaudily-dressed
object, that Winn at first took to be a child. Upon his appearance it
remained motionless for a few seconds, and then, with a frightened cry,
it sprang to the little girl's shoulder, from which it peered at the
stranger, chattering angrily all the while.

"Well, I am blest if this isn't a most extraordinary situation!"
exclaimed the old man. "It suggests a tableau of Venus rising from the
sea."

"Or a alligator," said the negro.

Sabella wanted to laugh at the comical spectacle presented by the
dripping, coatless, hatless, bare-footed, and generally woe-begone boy;
but pitying his evident embarrassment, she exclaimed:

"Uncle, how can you! Don't you see that he is shivering? You must go at
once and find him some dry clothes. Solon, show this boy to the