hanically because he saw the
others hurry.

The hooker was decked. The stowing of the lading in the hold was quickly
finished, and the moment to put off arrived. The last case had been
carried over the gangway, and nothing was left to embark but the men.
The two objects among the group who seemed women were already on board;
six, the child among them, were still on the low platform of the cliff.
A movement of departure was made in the vessel: the captain seized the
helm, a sailor took up an axe to cut the hawser--to cut is an evidence
of haste; when there is time it is unknotted.

"Andamos," said, in a low voice, he who appeared chief of the six, and
who had the spangles on his tatters. The child rushed towards the plank
in order to be the first to pass. As he placed his foot on it, two of
the men hurried by, at the risk of throwing him into the water, got in
before him, and passed on; the fourth drove him back with his fist and
followed the third; the fifth, who was the chief, bounded into rather
than entered the vessel, and, as he jumped in, kicked back the plank,
which fell into the sea, a stroke of the hatchet cut the moorings, the
helm was put up, the vessel left the shore, and the child remained on
land.

CHAPTER III.

ALONE.

The child remained motionless on the rock, with his eyes fixed--no
calling out, no appeal. Though this was unexpected by him, he spoke not
a word. The same silence reigned in the vessel. No cry from the child to
the men--no farewell from the men to the child. There was on both sides
a mute acceptance of the widening distance between them. It was like a
separation of ghosts on the banks of the Styx. The child, as if nailed
to the rock, which the high tide was beginning to bathe, watched the
departing bark. It seemed as if he realized his position. What did he
realize? Darkness.

A moment later the hooker gained the neck of the crook and entered it.
Against the clear sky the masthead was visible, rising above the split
blocks between which the strait wound as between two walls. The truck
wandered to the summit of the rocks, and appeared to run into them. Then
it was seen no more--all was over--the bark had gained the sea.

The child watched its disappearance--he was astounded but dreamy. His
stupefaction was complicated by a sense of the dark reality of
existence. It seemed as if there were experience in this dawning being.
Did he, perchance, already exercise judgment? Experie