But he had labored but a few steps with her, giving vent meanwhile to audible, involuntary groans, before it became evident to her, or to them both, that his grasp was failing, his feet sinking. She threw up a hand and partly dislodged his pipe; it was instantly a question of dropping his pipe or Miss Pray; the captain dropped Miss Pray. Both women were now angry with him; between all that sea and sky Captain Pharo appeared not to have a friend save his pipe and me. Miss Pray indignantly picked the rest of her steps alone. "Ye'll have to do the rest o' yer co'tin' in yer own way," murmured the captain to me, darkly and vaguely, as he stepped into the boat: "but my 'dvice to ye is, drop it! drop it right whar 'tis!" "Oh, that is all right," I tried to assure him. "I--I hadn't hardly begun, you know." We scoured the bottom successfully with the "Eliza Rodgers," but as we got into deep water there fell a perfect calm. "'T 'd be bad enough," said Captain Pharo, set against the world, and tugging wrathfully at the oars, "t' go on sech idjit contractions as these 'ith a breeze t' set sail to, but when 't comes to pullin' over thar' twenty mile, with the sea as flat as a floor, t' have yer darn fool pictur' took----" He laid down the oars with an undoubted air of permanency, and lit his pipe. Mrs. Kobbe pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail this coast in the dark, an' though--though you did act queer a little while ago, I don't--don't like to have you call yourself a da--darn fool." Captain Pharo glanced at me with suicidal despair. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray took out their knitting, with the implicit Basin superstition of "knitting up a breeze." They as seriously advised me to "scratch the mast and whistle," which, agreeably, I began to do. Thus occupied, I saw a sudden light break over the captain's face, as sighting something on the waves. "Fattest coot I've seen this year, by clam!" said he, seizing his gun from the bottom of the scow and firing. He fired again, and then rowed eagerly up to it. It was a little wandering wooden buoy bobbing bird-like on the waters. We did not look at him. Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray knitted; I scratched the mast with painful diligence. A breeze arose. The captain silently hoisted sail; at length he lit his pipe again, and returned, in a measured degree, to life. As we sailed thus at last with the wind into Millport it seemed that the "Eliza Rodgers" and we were accosted as natural objects of marvel and delight by the loafers on the wharf. "What po-ort?" bawled a merry fellow, speaking to us through his hands. "Why, don't ye see?" said a companion, pointing to Captain Pharo, who was taking down sail, with the complete flower turned shoreward; "they're Orientiles!"