To lift the oars was like raising logs of oak, but he shipped the pair at last, listening for the words of the others and watching their faces. It seemed simpler than straining his eyes to the East. Fleury tried to raise the overcoat from the bottom of the boat, but it fell from his hands, and he sank back smiling: “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re coming. They’ll see us soon.” To Bellair it was like seeing a ghost, that smile of Fleury’s. It meant something that in the future would be quite as important to him as the ship’s bearing down to lift them up. He pulled toward the east--felt the old fainting come, pulled against that,--to the east, until a low, thundering vibration was all about him, like the tramp of death. Perhaps it was that--the thought flickered up into form out of the deep blur.... He was drinking water again. This time he did not fight. “You may as well have yours, Bellair, man,” Fleury was saying, “and you need not row. They’re coming. It’s a ship coming fast. There is light for them to see us well--if they do not already----” “But you haven’t drunk!” “Bless you, I’ll drink now.” The woman handed him the water. The cup was in his hand. He covered merely the bottom of the cup, and made much of it as if it were a full quart. “The fact is--I’m not thirsty,” he said pitifully, when he saw their faces. “You’re all in,” Bellair said in an awed tone. * * * * * Through the prolonged ending of that day Bellair watched the steamer near, but his thoughts were not held to the beauty of her form, nor the pricking out at last of her lights. He stood against the bare pole in the dusk, and waved and called--his voice little and whimsical. It seemed to falter and cling within their little radius, then run back to his ears--a fledgeling effort. But the deep baying of the steamer answered at last. Even that could not hold Bellair’s thoughts.... She was coming straight toward them now. If it were death and illusion, so be it; at least that is what he saw. “It would be all right--except for him,” Bellair said to the woman. “I tell you all is well,” said Fleury. “Only I ask----” “Yes,” they said, when he paused. “Don’t let them separate us--when we are on board the ship to-night. I want to be with you both to-night--we three who have seen so much together--and the little man.” ... They heard her bells and the slackening of the engines. She was coming in softly like an angel, bringing the different life, a return to earth it was. The woman was weeping. Bellair could not have spoken without tears.... Just now through the evening purple, he saw _that_ star in the east, off the point of the steamer’s prow. “Fleury,” he said, “tell me--what is that one--that pure one--I have forgotten?” The preacher’s eyes followed his finger. “That is Spika--Spika of the Virgin,” he said. 12