Nearly all the light had gone now; but in the dim yellow twilight he detected something which created a profound emotion in him. He bent down and tried to pierce the thickening gloom. Then he drew in his paddle out of the water, and resting it on the bottom of the canoe, stood upon the gunwale, and, balancing himself, looked long into the south-west, the course in which the wind was carrying him. At length a gleam of hope illumined his face. With a wild shout of joy he sprang down from the gunwale, and, bending over the bundle in the bottom of the boat, cried out,-- 'Land! Land ahead!' The bundle moved a little once more, and a faint cry, half pleasure half pain, came from it. He took two more handfuls of some dark-coloured food, and thrust it under the furs. That was the last food left in the canoe. Night fell, and still that rude boat drifted on. Hour after hour this solitary figure stood up in the stern, and kept the boat from harm. About midnight the waves grew gradually less and less, and about the third hour the canoe was in comparatively smooth water. The man stooped, shook the bundle at his feet softly, and said,-- 'Courage! We are in a fjord or river. We are saved!' Although it was dark at four, he could make out land, low land at both sides of him. For hours he still kept on. Gradually the water had grown smoother, and now he was enabled to direct the course of the boat while crouching in the stern. He was almost exhausted, and kept awake with difficulty. At last, instead of the long even swells, the water grew broken and chopped, and whistled in the breeze. He noticed also the canoe moved more slowly, and that there was more difficulty in steering her. The man stood up, leaned over the side of the canoe, and laid his paddle on the surface of the water. The breeze had power over the boat, but little or none over the floating paddle. He then fixed his eyes on a large object on the shore close to hand, and watched intently. The boat neither advanced nor receded, yet the influence of the wind was as great as it had been hours before. Some force was counteracting the wind. He leaned over and grasped the paddle floating alongside. It had drifted an arm's length astern. Only one inference could be drawn from these facts: the tide had turned. Only one dread was in his mind: he might be dragged out to sea again. He bent low and examined, as well as the light would allow him, the right-hand shore. It was irregular, indented with little creeks and bays. Abreast of him was the highest point of land in view. He could see the other shore and about half-a-mile of the shore he lay under.