"Oh, thanks!" I cried fervently. He would be much nicer than Mr. Tubbs to cling to as I went down--indeed, he was so tall that if it were at all a shallow place I might use him as a stepping-stone and survive. I hoped drowning men didn't gurgle very much--meanwhile Mr. Vane had disappeared over the side, and a sailor was lifting me and setting my reluctant feet on the strands of the ladder. "Good-by, auntie !" I cried, as I began the descent. "Don't blame yourself too much. Everybody has to go some time, you know, and they say drowning's easy." With a stifled cry Aunt Jane forsook Mr. Tubbs and flew to the rail. I was already out of reach. "Oh, Virginia!" she wailed. "Oh, my dear child! If it should be the last parting!" "Give my jewelry and things to Bess's baby!" I found strength to call back. What with the wallowing of the steamer and the natural instability of rope-ladders I seemed a mere atom tossed about in a swaying, reeling universe. _What will Aunt Jane do_? flashed through my mind, and I wished I had waited to see. Then the arms of the Honorable Mr. Vane received me. The strong rowers bent their backs, and the boat shot out over the mile or two of bright water between us and the island. Great slow swells lifted us. We dipped with a soothing, cradle-like motion. I forgot to be afraid, in the delight of the warm wind that fanned our cheeks, of the moonbeams that on the crest of every ripple were splintered to a thousand dancing lights. I forgot fear, forgot Miss Higglesby-Browne, forgot the harshness of the Scotch character. "Oh, glorious, glorious!" I cried to Cuthbert Vane. "Not so dusty, eh?" he came back in their ridiculous English slang. Now an American would have said _some little old moon that_! We certainly have our points of superiority. All around the island white charging lines of breakers foamed on ragged half-seen reefs. You saw the flash of foam leaping half the height of the black cliffs. The thunder of the surf was in our ears, now rising to wild clamor, fierce, hungry, menacing, now dying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of the great shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing. The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from the island to the ship, passed us with a hail. We steered warily away from a wild welter of foam at the end of a long point, and shot beyond it on the heave of a great swell into quiet water. We were in the little bay under the shadow of the frowning cliff's. At the head of the bay, a quarter of a mile away, lay a broad white beach shining under the moon. At the edge of dark woods beyond a fire burned redly. It threw into relief the black moving shapes of men upon the sand. The waters of the cove broke upon the beach in a white lacework of foam.