He could not send a message—not one. Why should he? They would never understand. The fair-haired girl would never know how he had longed for her this night.
Down, down went the buoy, and the waters swallowed it up. A great wave—another—he had done with life, for the rotten rope had parted at last!
But on shore there was great rejoicing, for they hauled the skipper up out of the sea, bruised and hurt and half drowned, but still alive; and the cry went round that he was the last man left aboard the Vanity.
Then the bo’sun put up his hands and squinted through them seaward.
“Jimini! there’s the mizzen mast gone! Poor old girl!”
“An’,” said another voice, the voice of the man who had left before the skipper, “there was two men aboard when I left, an’ one of ‘em was the second mate. Where is he?”
“Gone to ——,” but a woman’s bitter cry cut short the bo’sun’s speech.
DICK STANESBY’S HUTKEEPER
“Hallo! Dick. You here! Why, I thought you were away up tea-planting in Assam.”