have it?' he said. 'Give it here--give it.'

'This also--this first. Drink--eat.'

'No; I cannot stay.'

'You shall--you must,' she urged. 'Do you owe me nothing? What, never a
word?'

He declined impatience to her better counsel; and when he had got the
rowan and belted it safe, to the praise of her providence he drank
eagerly and ate.

Rhoda spied a dark streak on his shoulder. 'You are hurt--oh!'

'Only skin-deep. Salt water stanched it.'

'And what of them? Christian, what have you done?' she asked with
apprehension.

'Yes; I have a charge for you. Oh, their skins are whole all. Can you
step on with me a pace? You will not be afraid?'

She looked at the wan south-west, and the sable heath, and the stark
trees; but she could answer now: 'No,' stoutly and truly, and shiver for
fear only. He withheld his pace for her, she stretched to a stride for
him.

'Well done, I know,' she said, 'but tell me how.'

He gave a meagre tale, but many a detail she heard later to fill it out.
It was easy doing according to Christian, when time and place suited, to
beat out a rib of the boat, to stand his ground for a moment while the
sea accomplished for him, then to drop overboard when blades struck too
quick and close. The boat went down, he said, near three miles from
shore.

'O Christian! are any drowned?'

'No, no. I had done my best by them. You know how the Tortoises lie. We
were well within a furlong of them. I got there first, and was doffed and
ready when they came, waiting to offer them fair. Rhoda, you will carry
word of this that some fellows may go to take them off.'

'Not I,' she said vindictively; 'let them wear the night there for due
quittance.'

'No. They might be perished. And 'twas I counselled them not to attempt
the shore, and said I could send word of their plight; and I meant it
honestly, though the fools grew so mad at that, that they took to
stoning.'

When, later, Rhoda heard the tale more fully, it showed elements of
incongruous comedy; later still, she heard it grown into monstrous
proportions, when the name of the Tortoises was put aside, and the place
was known as the Devil's Rocks thenceforward. The Alien's feats that day,
his mighty stroke staving the boat, his swimming of marvellous speed, his
confidence and temerity, were not passed on to his credit: adverse was
the interpretation, and he never lived it down.

'Tell me, Christian, where you will be, and how we are to get news o