Poor Olly tried to smile with his pinched, empurpled face; at the same time casting down his eyes in some alarm, to see what there was about his dress to put such a notion into Perce's head. "Olly doesn't feel like joking," observed Moke. "Neither would you, I guess!" exclaimed Olly, glad to change the subject. "All night on the rocks except when I was paddling or swimming for my life. No fire, not a mouthful to eat, not a wink of sleep! I got wet through a second time, getting over here from the 'Calf,' in a sinking boat. I can't tell you how it made me feel, boys, to see your fire on the beach last night, and again this morning! Why didn't you see me? I tried the handkerchief, and then the board, but I thought you never would look!" "We were too far off," said Poke. "We were too busy minding our own business," said Moke. "That reminds me, the seaweed is waiting for us," said Poke. "Hurry up, boys!" Perce was the last to leave the island; and he himself got wet up to his waist by a wave, in preventing the boat from being dashed upon the rocks after the others were aboard. He did not care for a little salt water himself. But he thought of the watch in the pocket of his trousers. That, however, would probably not be much hurt by a few additional drops after what it had been through already. As far as he was concerned, the mystery had not been cleared up, at all, as he had expected it would be, by the rescue of the castaway. If Olly had frankly told his entire story, how gladly would Perce have taken the treasure-trove from his pocket and held it out to him, exclaiming: "Here is your watch, boy!" gladdening his eyes with the sight. But as it was, both were silent on the subject which now filled both their minds. Olly had already learned from his companions that their only reasons for thinking the yacht had been wrecked, was the fact of its not having returned the night before, and the appearance, that morning, of a human form on the outlying rock,--excepting always the very private reason in Perce Bucklin's trousers-pocket. Mr. Hatville was then most likely still undrowned; and now that his own life was saved, Olly began to study how he should shirk the responsibility of his guilty borrowing,--in his troubled thoughts looking every way except the right way, and inventing plausible fictions, where nothing would avail like the simple truth. He sat in the stern of his companions' dory, leading his own in tow by the painter; dejected and silent, and more than once thinking he would watch for a chance, when nobody was observing him, to drop overboard the watch-seal and the fragment of chain which he still carried in his vest. CHAPTER XIV. OLLY HAS A BAD DREAM.