weak and ineffectual,
like a cry in a dream, and seemed hardly to reach beyond the surf
before it was suffocated in the creeping cloud. A silence followed, but
no response.

"It's no use to beach her and go ashore until we find the boat," said
the first voice, gravely; "and we'll do that if the current has brought
her here. Are you sure you've got the right bearings?"

"As near as a man could off a shore with not a blasted pint to take his
bearings by."

There was a long silence again, broken only by the occasional dip of
oars, keeping the invisible boat-head to the sea.

"Take my word for it, lads, it's the last we'll see of that boat again,
or of Jack Cranch, or the captain's baby."

"It _does_ look mighty queer that the painter should slip. Jack Cranch
ain't the man to tie a granny knot."

"Silence!" said the invisible leader. "Listen."

A hail, so faint and uncertain that it might have been the
long-deferred, far-off echo of their own, came from the sea, abreast of
them.

"It's the captain. He hasn't found anything, or he couldn't be so far
north. Hark!"

The hail was repeated again faintly, dreamily. To the seamen's trained
ears it seemed to have an intelligent significance, for the first voice
gravely responded, "Aye, aye?" and then said softly, "Oars."

The word was followed by a splash. The oars clicked sharply and
simultaneously in the rowlocks, then more faintly, then still fainter,
and then passed out into the darkness.

The silence and shadow both fell together; for hours sea and shore were
impenetrable. Yet at times the air was softly moved and troubled, the
surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was
dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow
out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank
away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous
gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even
as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle
sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate laughter
or spoken words. But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on
the sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the
ear, asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in
the gloom became an opaque object on the shore.

With the first rays of the morning light the fog lifted. As the
undraped hills one by one bared th