She was in her first quarter--a child moon, swelling into maidenhood. Slowly, slowly she rose, while we watched her, gloating, absorbed. Gradually the blush with which she had first observed us, sole spectators of her girlish disrobing, faded into a white glow of pity. Her tresses fell from her neck upon the sea, the mist parting to let them by, and were extended to us, “Climb to me by them,” she seemed to whisper; “here is the way to hope.” And lo! full in the midst of that shining path rode a little boat. There was a man in it, a solitary fisherman trawling for soles. The agony of the moment gave us life and voice. We screamed to him; we waved; we made every frantic demonstration that was possible to us in our condition. He heard and saw us--and he sat as if stricken. Ghostly, leisurely, we drifted past, and the boat faded and became a phantom behind us. We could not believe it. We never ceased to cry out. It was too hideous, too cruel for truth. Harry, with a dying effort, half rose. I don’t know what desperate thought was in his mind. “Hush!” I suddenly implored; and we all became stone. There was a little knock and paddle coming to us out of the mist. In a moment the boat forged into sight, approached us, and hung off. “Who be ye?” said a fearful voice. We answered all together in a babble. “Nay, let me speak alone,” said Joshua; and he hailed the man clearly. “We went to visit the wreck on the sands; we were abandoned there by a scoundrel, and we have been floating on this spar ever since.” Still the man was not convinced. We could hear him distinctly spit into the water. It is so his class exorcises all demons. “What might be your names, now?” he asked cunningly. Here was a poser for the devil. “First of all, Master Richard Bowen,” began Joshua. “Hey!” interrupted the boatman, with all his voice of wonder; and he sculled rapidly up, and alongside. “Master!” He peered through the mist. “Lord have mercy on ’s, ’tis himself trewthfully!” “Old Jacob!” I cried, in a faint voice between laughing and sobbing. “Old Jacob, help us off this before we die!” And after that I remember nothing. CHAPTER XIII. RAMPICK SPEAKS. You remember old Jacob? ’Twas he seconded Harry so unhandsomely in the great fight. He had retired upon his savings now, and did no work, save when a still night persuaded him forth with line and trawling-net, and the loan of a friend’s boat could be procured. Such had been the case when we ran across him. He had taken advantage of the holiday spirit, which kept all “afternoon farmers” of the sea scrupulously away from it, to pull a few miles out in a borrowed craft, and try for a basket of fish to make a welcome garnish to his Christmas pot.