And buoyed by the magnificent swimmer whose teeth were in his collar, he stiffened his breast and pointed. But the Newfoundland, who had not seen Johnny fall, had leapt to save the life of Hardy, and with bitter, blighting despair in his heart the gallant young fellow felt the beautiful animal at his side urging him irresistibly up one slope and down another in the direction of the ship, with its dreadful figure of human anguish gesticulating and shouting on the grating. The hearts that bent the blades rowed with love of the boy and a maddening passion to save him. They came to Hardy first and dragged him and the dog over the gunwale, and a man standing up in the stern-sheets steered the boat for the place where the little fellow had last been seen from the deck of the ship. But they rowed in vain. Sodden with brine, and half blinded by the tears of a manly sailor's heart, the mate strained his vision over the running seas, and knew, O God! and knew that Johnny had sunk for ever. "Oh, what a pity!" said one of the men. "The dog could have saved him," exclaimed another. "No, he was gone before the dog could have reached the place," said Hardy, and he sank upon a thwart and covered his face. The Newfoundland laid his massive jaws upon his knee in caress and in encouragement, knowing he was saved, and loving him as those majestic creatures love the life they have torn from the grasp of death. The men, with the lifted blades of their oars sparkling in the sun, gazed silently around, but Johnny was gone. The tall seas seethed, and the boat fell away with their melting heads and rose buoyant to the height of the next slant, but Johnny was gone, and after they had lingered half an hour the men, to the command of Hardy, turned the boat's head toward the ship, and rowed away from that sun-lighted scene of ocean grave which already the hand of viewless love had strewn with flowers and garlands of foam. Captain Layard was standing with tightly folded arms beside the skylight when Hardy arrived on board, and approached him, shuddering with grief and with the exhaustion that attends even a brief spell of battling with the rolling seas of the ocean. The unhappy father's face was utterly unintelligible in expression. And still a critical eye, with good capacity for subtle penetration, would in this time of sudden and awful bereavement have witnessed in that poor man's face the dangerous condition of his soul. The men who were hoisting the boat pulled with askant looks full of respect and rough sympathy, and the boat rose in silence, so touched were the sailors' hearts by this sudden loss of the bright-haired little darling of the ship. The Newfoundland, shaking a shower from his coat, came to the captain, seemed to know that grief was in him, and looked up at him. "Where is my little Johnny?" said the captain to Hardy, in a firm, sharp tone. Hardy could not answer him.