for
it was daylight still. The evening air was very fresh and cool; there
was no wind, and the edges of the river were motionless and smooth,
although in mid-stream the now in-coming tide clucked and swirled as
it met the rush. Over at Wittisham one or two lights were beginning to
twinkle, and there came drifting across the water a smell of wood
smoke that suggested evening fires. Carnaby handled a boat well, for
he had been born a sailor, as it were, and his long, powerful strokes
took him along at a fine pace. But although he was going to look for
Robinette and Mark, he was rather angry with both of them, and in no
hurry. He rested on his oars indifferently and let the tide carry him
up as it liked, while, with infinite zest, he unearthed a cigarette
case from the recesses of his person, lit a cigarette, and smoked it
coolly. Under Carnaby's apparent boyishness, there was a certain
somewhat dangerous quality of precocity, which was stimulated rather
than checked by his grandmother's repressive system. His smoking now
was less the monkey-trick of a boy, than an act of slightly cynical
defiance. He was no novice in the art, and smoked slowly and daintily,
throwing back his head and blowing the smoke sometimes through his
lips and sometimes through his nose. He looked for the moment older
than his years, and a difficult young customer at that. His present
sulky expression disappeared, however, under the influence of tobacco
and adventure.

"Where the dickens are they?" he began to wonder, pulling harder.

A bend in the river presently solved the mystery. On a wide stretch of
mud-bank, which the tide had left bare in going out, but was now
beginning to cover again, a solitary boat was stranded.

With this clue to guide him, Carnaby's bright eyes soon discovered the
two dim forms in the distance.

"Ahoy!" he shouted, and received a joyous answer. Robinette and Mark
were the two derelicts, and their rescuer skimmed towards them with
all his strength.

He could get only within a few yards of the rock to which their boat
was tied, and from that distance he surveyed them, expecting to find a
dismal, ship-wrecked pair, very much ashamed of themselves and
getting quite weary of each other. On the contrary the faces he could
just distinguish in the uncertain light, were radiant, and Robinette's
voice was as gay as ever he had heard it. He leaned upon his oars and
looked at them with wonder.

"Angel cousin!" cried Robinet