han before.

The misty sun was high in the heavens when at length they reached the
foot of the steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the
ascent. He was making a severe muscular effort; but it was the nervous
tension that troubled him most, for he knew that he would look down
upon the inlet from the summit. He blamed himself bitterly for not
sending on a messenger to Dampier when he fell in with Overweg, which,
in his eagerness to follow up the clue the latter had given him, he had
at first omitted to do. There had certainly been difficulties in the
way, for the increase in the scientist's party had made additional
packers necessary, and Wyllard felt that he could not reasonably compel
him to leave the camp comforts he had evidently been accustomed to
behind. In spite of that, he had been at fault in not disregarding
every objection, and he realised it now.

Somehow he kept pace with Lewson, but he closed one hand tight as he
neared the top. When he reached it he stopped suddenly, and his face
set hard as he looked down, standing very still. Beneath him lay a
strip of dim, green water, with a fringe of soft, white surf at the
foot of the promontory, while beyond the latter there stretched away an
empty expanse of slowly heaving sea. There was nothing else, however;
no schooner in the inlet, no boat upon the beach.

In another moment or two they went down the slope savagely at a
stumbling run, and then stopped, gasping by the water's edge, and
looked at one another. There were marks in the sand which showed them
where a boat had been drawn up not very long ago. The _Selache_ had
evidently been there, and had sailed away again.

Then Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength
seemed to suddenly melt out of him, and it was several minutes before
he looked up. Lewson was still standing, a shapeless, barbaric figure
in his garments of skins, with a dark lined face that had scarcely
changed, gazing out to sea. The hide moccasins he wore had chafed
through, and Wyllard noticed that the blood was trickling from one of
his feet.

"Well?" he said, harshly.

Wyllard laid a stern restraint upon himself. Their case looked
desperate, but it must, at least, be grappled with.

"We must go back and meet the rest," he said. "That first--what is to
come afterwards I don't quite know." Then a faint gleam of resolution
crept into his eyes. "The schooner the Russians seized lies in