turned only in one direction: how to escape as speedily as
possible from this wretched island. As the days went by and no vessel
appeared, she began to wonder if they would ever be rescued, or if she
was doomed to remain on that remote islet for the rest of her days
unable to communicate with her father and mother and friends, who, in
ignorance of her fate, had long since given her up as dead. Perhaps in
years to come some ship touching at the island in search of water would
find, strewed along the beach, her bleached bones and his--picked clean
by the vultures. She wept bitterly as she thought of it; her face was
bathed in tears of compassion over her misfortune. She was ashamed to
let Armitage see that she had been crying, but all day she brooded over
her sorrow, and at night she dreamed that he was building a boat stout
enough to convey them to the mainland.

Fearful that she would lose all notion of time, she started to count the
days, keeping a rough kind of calender by scratching notches at regular
intervals on a shell. She notched off the days one by one, her spirits
sinking in proportion as their number increased. In her despair she
appealed to her companion to reassure her. But Armitage shook his head
dubiously. He had little comfort to offer.

"We must be patient," he said grimly. "We're here scarcely a week. Think
of those shipwrecked sailors who have been marooned on desert islands
for months, even years, often with almost nothing to eat. When finally
they were rescued they were not recognizable as men. Their clothes hung
upon them in shreds, their hair was matted and over-grown, they had
forgotten how to talk, they tore the meat given them with their fingers
like famished wolves. We have not so much to complain of. We have plenty
of water, enough to eat. It's no use fretting. We must wait patiently.
Perhaps we won't have to wait long. Any day our signal-fire may be
sighted by a vessel."

They now kept two fires going, one close at hand for their own use, and
another much bigger on top of the hill for signaling purposes. The
hill-top commanded a superb view of every part of the island, and,
viewed from the ocean, it must have been a conspicuous mark for miles.
They christened it Mount Hope, for on it Grace centered all her fervent
prayers for rescue. It became her Mecca, and each day she made the long
and exhausting climb up its precipitous slope in the expectation of
seeing steamer smoke or a sail on the