ir and shaggy beards,
leaning over the bulwarks staring at him. They had seen with
astonishment the corpse, as they thought, of a little naked white
boy lying on the old black raft, with a multitude of sea-birds
gathered to feed on him; now when they saw him get up on his knees
and look at them, they uttered a great cry, and began rushing
excitedly hither and thither, to pull at ropes and lower a boat.
Martin did not know what they were doing; he only knew that they
were men in a ship, but he was now too weak and worn-out to look at
or think of more than one thing at a time, and what he was looking at
now was the birds. For no sooner had he looked up and seen the ship
than their wild cries ceased, and they rose up and up like a white
cloud to scatter far and wide over sky and sea. For some moments he
continued watching them, listening to their changed voices, which
now had a very soft and pleasant sound, as if they were satisfied
and happy. It made him happy to hear them, and he lifted his hands
up and smiled; then, relieved of his terror and overcome with
weariness, he closed his eyes and dropped once more full length upon
his bed of wet seaweed. At that the men stared into each other's face,
a very strange startled look coming into their eyes. And no wonder!
For long, long months, running to years, they had been cruising in
those lonely desolate seas, thousands of miles from home, seeing no
land nor any green thing, nor dear face of woman or child: and now
by some strange chance a child had come to them, and even while they
were making all haste to rescue it, putting their arms out to take
it from the sea, its life had seemingly been snatched from them!

But he was only sleeping.

[Illustration: ]

NOTE

_When I arranged with Mr. Hudson for the publication of an
American Edition of_ A Little Boy Lost, _I asked him to write a
special foreword to his American readers. He replied with a
characteristic letter, and, taking him at his word. I am printing it
on the following pages_.

ALFRED A. KNOPF.

_Dear Mr. Knopf_:

Your request for a Foreword to insert in the American
reprint of the little book worries me. A critic on
this side has said that my Prefaces to reprints of my
earlier works are of the nature of parting kicks, and I
have no desire just now to kick this poor innocent.
That evil-tempered old woman, Mother Nature, in one
of her worst tantrums, has been inflicting