to help him. The waters have closed over him--let him go
down, to the very bottom of the sea."

But she was wise in her fiendish wickedness, and knew that as they had
been seen last together she must account for McKay's disappearance. At
the end of an interval long enough to make rescue impossible she
startled the whole yacht with her screams.

"Help! Help! Mr. McKay! He has fallen overboard!"

They came rushing aft to where she stood once more holding on to the
top of the companion, and plied her with questions.

"There! there! make haste!" she cried--"for Heaven's sake make haste!"

"A boat could hardly live in this sea," said Captain Trejago, gravely.
"Still, we must make the attempt. Who will go with me?" he asked, and
volunteers soon sprang to his side.

It was a service of immense danger, but the boat was lowered, and for
more than half-an-hour made such diligent search as was possible in
the weather and in the sea.

After that time the boat was brought back to the yacht by its brave
but disappointed crew.

"No chance for the poor chap," said Captain Trejago, shaking his head
despondingly in reply to Mrs. Wilders's mute but eager appeal.

Soon afterwards they got up the anchor, and the yacht sped southward
under a few rags of sail.

CHAPTER XIX.

UNCLE AND NEPHEW.

It will be well to relieve at once the anxiety which the reader must
feel--unless I have altogether failed to interest him--in the fate of
my hero, Stanislas McKay.

He was not drowned when, through the fiendish intervention of Mrs.
Wilders, he fell from the deck of the _Arcadia_, and was, as it
seemed, swallowed up in the all-devouring sea.

He went under, it is true, but only for a moment, and, coming once
more to the surface, by a few strong strokes swam to a drifting spar.
To this he clung desperately, hoping against hope that he might yet be
picked up from the yacht. Unhappily for him, the waves ran so high
that the boat under Trejago's guidance failed to catch sight of him,
and, as we know, returned presently to the _Arcadia_, after a
fruitless errand, as was thought.

Very shortly the yacht and the half-submerged man parted company. The
former was steered for the open sea; the latter drifted and tossed
helplessly to and fro, growing hourly weaker and more and more
benumbed, but always hanging on with convulsive tenacity to the
friendly timber that buoyed him up, and was his last frail chance of
life.

All night long