Where were the boys whom he had left in the water-logged ship? He himself had anchored that ship in these waters, hard and fast; but now, as he looked about far over the seas, he saw no sign of any ship, or of any floating thing save that distant fishing schooner. What did this mean? Again and again he asked this question, and again and again he shrank back from the answer that suggested itself. He tried to console himself by thinking of the buoyancy of wood in general, and of timber ships in particular. Alas! these efforts were all in vain. For he remembered how rough the sea had been; and he saw all around him even now the swelling waves. That ship had already been torn and shattered by storms. That ship had been forsaken by captain and crew. They had believed that she was about to founder. Was this belief, then, so far wrong as he had supposed? She was like a raft, torn and dislocated, which any fresh movement of the water might shatter to pieces. Perhaps in the storm that had fallen upon her in his absence the waves had wrought their will upon her. Perhaps they had torn her to pieces in their wrath, and scattered all her timbers afar over the surface of the deep. Perhaps the only vestige of the Petrel which his eyes might ever see, might be some floating timbers drifting past, and bearing to him the only message which could ever come to the land of the living from the lost boys. Where were the boys? Where, O, where were the boys whom he had led into danger, and then madly deserted?--doubly deserted, in fact; first, when he sailed away, leaving them on board the wrecked ship, and secondly, in that worse desertion, when he had gone away so thoughtlessly, so wickedly, and so madly, from the Magdalen Islands to the Miramichi River? How could he have ever thought of it? What could have so infatuated him as to lead him so far away from those helpless boys in their desperate position? Where were the boys? O, where were the boys? And what had they thought of him? What misery had they not suffered! What despair! How often must they have watched for his return! And day had succeeded to day, and night to night, but he had never come! While they were watching for his appearance, he was calmly sailing away, or was loitering in distant ports, leaving them to their terrific fate! Where were the boys? What was their fate? What had become of that ship? She had been anchored fast. She was gone now. Gone! Gone were those boys, for whom he would have laid down his life; but whom, nevertheless, he had deserted and betrayed. And he--what could he do? Where could he go? Where could he search for them? Over what seas could he sail? With what hope? Was there any hope? Hope! Alas! what hope could he form when he looked out over these foaming waves, and felt the Antelope quiver beneath the force of their assault?