At that Mary Smith snatched her hand suddenly from mine and moved toward the edge of the cliff, crying out that we must continue our search. I climbed the orchard wall and looked along the shore. Here the cliff dropped away almost sheer, and the narrow strip of shingle at its base was lost in the surf. Farther to the north it widened a little with the curve of the shore, and through a swaying curtain of rain I could follow it to a point we called the Notch, near the entrance of the Cat's Mouth; of late years they have dredged the channel and moored a bell-buoy off this headland. There was nothing alive in sight; some prone black objects I saw, with a start, were only a few fisher-boats drawn up on the sand, and none too safe. I looked out to sea; the tide was making, and, where the strait drew in toward the Cat's Teeth, the waves fought and clamored with a horrid vigor, like living monsters. Their huge voices outdid the winds, and, as one after another made forward, towered, and broke upon the reefs, the Teeth disappeared in a welter of foam. Hereabout we found the old man at last. Where he had got a boat, or with what madman's strength he had launched it, we could not guess. It was midway of the Cat's Mouth that I first caught sight of him, at no great distance measured by feet and inches, but as far beyond human aid as if the wide Atlantic had separated us. He was standing up in the stern, with folded arms, in something the posture he may have maintained on the poop of his ship in old days--where, perhaps, he fancied himself at this moment. I trust that reason was withheld from him in the utter hour; and certainly, although I could not discern his features, I saw him make no gesture either to invite help or to indicate that he had any understanding of his position. If mad, I thought (right or wrong) his death thus less ignoble than his life had become; if sane, he held a strong and steadfast heart, and bore himself well on his last voyage. By some strange chance, the boat spun and tossed among the breakers, yet kept an even keel, and boat and man together made a viking end. For, so standing, unconscious or unmoved, he went down, before our eyes, between the white and pointed reefs of the Cat's Teeth. [Illustration] [Illustration] BOB, DEBUTANT BY HENRY GARDNER HUNTING ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENMAN FINK Of course, Bob knew that, as an abstract ethical principle, it is wrong to fight. His mother had been endeavoring to impress that idea upon him, from the moment it was first decided that he should go to public school till his books and his lunch-box were packed and he was on his way thither; and she had succeeded fairly well, for she had exacted a promise from him faithfully to avoid personal encounters as wholly sinful and unbecoming.