Some there might have gone, for the captain was a naturally humane man and very much in earnest. But the Orkneyman was a master spirit among them, and his example prevailed. No one would go. The skipper mounted a few ratlines of the main-rigging, and shouted to swim to the floating wreck of the foremast, not far from where they struggled with the life-buoy--an easy swim had they swum alone. They made no response, nor did they cease their futile struggles. But they did not struggle with each other, only with the life-buoy and with the sea. They drifted to leeward into the lagoon, past the wreckage that might have saved them both, and by which they could have regained the ship. With only their heads showing occasionally, for their struggles kept them under, they went out of sight in the smudge of rain and spindrift, gripping with all their strength the small life-buoy that would have supported one, but not two. Cursed to the last with a fear of each other that matched their hate, they would not fight, but died as they lived, with their problem unsolved and their supremacy undetermined. THE MATE OF HIS SOUL Though he became a man later, he was a child of three when I first knew him, and I was a youngster of ten. He was fair-haired, pink-cheeked, and somewhat girlish--that is, a sweet-faced child, who attracted affection and attention. He had a father, mother, a couple of aunts--all in the same household, and several devoted cousins and neighbors, of various ages, who occasionally visited him. I was in the latter class, and, one day, after running an errand for his mother, I picked him up, after the manner of my elders, and petted him. He stood it tranquilly and smilingly, until his eyes rested on a corner of the room. Then they dilated in terror, and a piercing scream came from his lips. It was not the ordinary scream of nervous children--it was more. After the beginning it rose an octave higher, much as a policeman's whistle will rise from pressure of breath, or a steam siren take a new note when it is well at work. It was penetrating and harrowing, and his feminine relatives responded with inquiries and fumbling after possible pins. Yet the screams continued, while his eyes were fixed in indescribable intensity on the corner. He saw something there. "What is it, boy?" I asked. "What do you see?" "There!" he gasped, pointing. "Don't let it. Don't." I gave him to his mother, and with the true intuition of a harum-scarum boy, I ran to the corner, shouting, "Get out of here," at the same time dealing a furious kick at an imaginary creature. However, I was not affected at the time. Repeating my injunctions to get out, I kicked and pursued the imaginary thing out through the door, and returned, smiling, to the child. "It's gone," he whimpered. "Don't let it come back." "But what was it?" they asked. "What did you think you saw, Freddie?" He did not answer, and I ventured a suggestion: "Ghosts?"