hind there busy over the little smack
they had built lying now in the safe anchorage of the bay?

He could bear it no longer, and drawing a long breath, he started to
run, though it was only a feeble trot, till the rocks rose up steeply,
and he was compelled to climb slowly and painfully with many a slip, but
always urged by the sensation that if he did not use every effort he
would be too late.

He had climbed that ridge dozens of times. He knew the easiest way; but
now its difficulties were terrible, and in his heated exhausted
condition he could hardly drag himself up over the last steep block.
The nightmare-like sensation grew more painful, and he felt that he must
give way, but that dread of being too late spurred him on till he was on
the very summit, where he sank down with a groan of despair, for there,
hundreds of yards from where he lay, right on the other side of the
western arm of the black crater, was the boat with a white sail spread,
skimming along so rapidly that in another few moments it was hidden from
his longing eyes.

He raised himself upon his hands, his eyes staring wildly, his lips
parting to give utterance to a hoarse cry, but so feeble, that it was
like the querulous wail of a sea-gull, and as his cry was lost in the
immensity around, the boat glided onward and was gone, leaving him with
his spirit as dark as the waters at his feet where they filled up the
crater that lay between him and the help he had come to seek.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

HOW HOPE REVIVED LIKE A SUNSHINE GLEAM.

"What shall I do? what shall I do?" groaned Mark, as he stared at the
black ridge which ran down to the sea on the other side of the bay.

Then he looked down at the carefully-moored little vessel that lay near
the old charred and well-stripped hull, and lastly with a sigh at the
cloud-draped mountain high up to his left, beyond the head of the little
black-beached bay.

Wearied out, parched with thirst, and with his throat seeming to be
half-closed up, he tried to give another hail, and then, knowing that
his feeble voice would not travel across the bay, he descended slowly
from step to step, from rift to rift. Sometimes he missed his footing,
and slipped or rolled down; sometimes he lay for a few moments too much
exhausted to attempt to rise, till the thought of those who were
awaiting his return came back to him reproachfully, and struggling to
his feet once more he continued his descent, gazing anxio