The last headland swept past him; the river and the river bank were now lost to him. Around him the expanse of water grew darker, and broader, and more terrible. Above him the stars glimmered more faintly from the sky. But the very habit of exertion still remained, and his faint plunges still dipped the little board into the water; and a vague idea of saving himself was still uppermost in his mind. Deep down in that stout heart of his was a desperate resolution never to give up while strength lasted; and well he sustained that determination. Over him the mist came floating, borne along by the wind which sighed around him; and that mist gradually overspread the scene upon which his straining eyes were fastened. It shut out the overhanging sky. It extinguished the glimmering stars. It threw a veil over the receding shores. It drew its folds around him closer and closer, until at last everything was hidden from view. Closer and still closer came the mist, and thicker and ever thicker grew its dense folds, until at last even the water, into which he still thrust his frail paddle, was invisible. At length his strength failed utterly. His hands refused any longer to perform their duty. The strong, indomitable will remained, but the power of performing the dictates of that will was gone. He fell back upon the sail that lay in the bottom of the boat, and the board fell from his hands. And now there gathered around the prostrate figure of the lost boy all the terrors of thickest darkness. The fog came, together with the night, shrouding all things from view, and he was floating over a wide sea, with an impenetrable wall of thickest darkness closing him in on all sides.