Hours passed in hopeless monotony, with no slackening or diminution of the waters. Even the drifts became less, and a vacant sea at last spread before him on which nothing moved. An awful silence impressed him. In the afternoon rain again began to fall on this gray, nebulous expanse, until the whole world seemed made of aqueous vapor. He had but one idea now--the coming of the evening boat, and he would reserve his strength to swim to it. He did not know until later that it could no longer follow the old channel of the river, and passed far beyond his sight and hearing. With his disappointment and exposure that night came a return of his old fever. His limbs were alternately racked with pain or benumbed and lifeless. He could scarcely retain his position--at times he scarcely cared to--and speculated upon ending his sufferings by a quick plunge downward. In other moments of lucid misery he was conscious of having wandered in his mind; of having seen the dead face of the murdered sheriff, washed out of his shallow grave by the flood, staring at him from the water; to this was added the hallucination of noises. He heard voices, his own name called by a voice he knew--Captain Jack's! Suddenly he started, but in that fatal movement lost his balance and plunged downward. But before the water closed above his head he had had a cruel glimpse of help near him; of a flashing light--of the black hull of a tug not many yards away--of moving figures--the sensation of a sudden plunge following his own, the grip of a strong hand upon his collar, and--unconsciousness! When he came to he was being lifted in a boat from the tug and rowed through the deserted streets of a large city, until he was taken in through the second-story window of a half-submerged hotel and cared for. But all his questions yielded only the information that the tug--a privately procured one, not belonging to the Public Relief Association--had been dispatched for him with special directions, by a man who acted as one of the crew, and who was the one who had plunged in for him at the last moment. The man had left the boat at Stockton. There was nothing more? Yes!--he had left a letter. Morse seized it feverishly. It contained only a few lines: We are quits now. You are all right. I have saved YOU from drowning, and shifted the curse to my own shoulders. Good-by. CAPTAIN JACK. The astounded man attempted to rise--to utter an exclamation--but fell back, unconscious.