this direction that he decided to go.

But he had not walked far along the glistening sand when he suddenly bethought himself. Signs of life there had yet been none, save the cries of birds from the trees above him. But what if he came upon a fishing village, and found himself among enemies—the wild red men of whom he had heard, the Spaniards of whose terrible deeds returning navigators made such grim tales for the winter nights at home? Where was he? On some shore of the Caribbean Sea, he made no doubt, for only the day before, when the Maid Marian was sailing merrily westward, Sir Martin had declared, and old Miles had borne him out, that but a few more days would bring them to the point where they expected to meet other adventurers who had preceded them on the same quest for excitement and gain.

And Dennis halted as one dazed when the full sense of his calamity was borne in upon him. He was alone!—alone! There might be, for all he knew, thousands of people almost within hail of him; but he was none the less alone, for they would be of another race, speaking another tongue, unfriendly, hostile. He sat down on a smooth rock and, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, stared moodily out to sea. Between him and all that he held dear stretched this wide ocean for thousands of miles. In utter hopelessness he wondered why it had not swallowed him up with all his comrades, instead of casting him here, a battered miserable body.

The mood passed. He had escaped the perils of the sea, not by his own strength, but by the hand of Providence. If perchance he had more to fear from man than from nature—why, it behoved him, an English boy, and a Devon boy to boot, to face his destiny with a stout heart. After all, he was of the same stuff as Master Walter Raleigh and Master Francis Drake and many another bold man of Devon. He could not think that any one of them, in his situation, would give way to black despair; and, lifting his aching body from the shore, he walked on: he would at least learn somewhat of his surroundings.

The beach, he found, bore gradually to the left, so that he could see but a short distance ahead. Still he encountered no signs of life, save here and there a scuttling crab, and the rank plant growths above him, whence now and again a bird fluttered out and wheeled screaming about his head, and then soared clattering into the foliage. Soon he tired of this monotonous tramping over sand, which appeared to lead no whither; and observing at length a cleft in the rocks, whence a shallow stream swiftly poured itself upon the beach, he bethought himself he might more quickly make a discovery if he pushed his way up the water-course, which must by and by lead to higher ground. He turned in obedience to this impulse, waded through the stream, that wound this way and that between banks thickly covered with vegetation, and after what seemed an eternity to his aching limbs, found himself upon a cliff overlooking the sea. His wandering had brought him by a circuit to a point north of the spot where he had awoke to consciousness.

The cliff on which he stood was much higher than the surrounding country. To right and left the ground shelved downwards, and he now perceived that the coast on both sides had an inward trend; that, in fact, the cliff was also a promontory. Turning round, he found that his view was blocked by the trees except in one direction, where a sudden dip in the ground gave him an outlook over several miles. And there, surely, at the far end of the vista, was the sea again. For the first time the suspicion occurred to him that he had been cast upon an island.

He went to the farthest point of the cliff to scan more carefully the horizon. Looking across the sea, which from the beach had seemed an unbroken plain, he now saw in the far distance several dark vague shapes rising a little above the surface. These must be islands. To the north, somewhat nearer to him, and somewhat more definite, were similar forms, which seemed to grow in size during the hour or more he watched them, no doubt owing to the fall of the tide. Far to the south he descried a long dark bar upon the horizon; this must be land, many miles away, probably the mainland. His view to the east being almost entirely shut out by the foliage, he could feel no certainty that his suspicion was justified; but he felt a stirring of interest and excitement now: supposing it were indeed an island, how did the discovery bear upon his lot?

Once more he turned and gazed along the valley at whose end he saw the sea. It could not be many miles away; perhaps in an hour or so he could reach it. The island, apparently, was not a large one, so that he could not go far without meeting its inhabitants. He looked around for any signs of habitation—a roof-top, a column of smoke; but there was none. Next moment he reflected that, if the island were small, it would not take him long to make its circuit and search every yard of the beach for tracks of his late comrades—of the Maid Marian too. Still cherishing a hope that some might have survived like himself, he set off to descend the cliff towards the beach, every downward step racking his bruised limbs and strained joints. When he gained the beach, he once more tramped southward, his eagerness lending him speed. He passed the water-course up which he had struck inland, and soon after came upon scattered articles of wreckage, among them the broken topmast of the Maid Marian. With a sigh for his lost comrades he passed on.

The sun had risen high in the heavens, and Dennis was fain to rest.

"I'm a poor battered hulk," he said aloud, finding some little solace in the sound of his voice, "and hungry—how hungry I am!"

He looked around for food, spied some shell-fish and ate them raw, quenching the ensuing thirst at another stream that rippled down from the interior. The feeling of nervousness lest he should encounter strangers again took hold upon him, and he felt a desire to hide. He found himself casting uneasy, almost terrified glances around him from the nook in which he was now resting, somewhat sheltered from the sun's fierce rays. Then, conquering the feeling, he rose again to continue his search of the beach. He must by and by, he thought, come upon some quay or harbour. When he should see it, he would halt and consider his course of action: whether to advance and risk the meeting with strangers, or to retreat until with recovered strength and a clearer mind he could prepare himself for what might be in store.

As he proceeded, he noticed that the jungle frequently approached to within a few feet of the mass of weed that marked high-water. At one spot he discovered, almost buried in the sand, the worm-eaten stern-post of a vessel. He could distinguish one or two letters of her name. Many a ship, he doubted not, had been wrecked on this coast, many a hapless wight had been cast up by the tide, alive or dead. By and by he came, on the southern side of the island, to high cliffs, and he set about scaling that which offered the easiest ascent, to obtain a view of sea and land from this point of vantage also. It was densely wooded, and as he mounted he heard, besides the cries of startled birds, other sounds that struck uncannily upon his ear. In his weakened state any new note in these sounds set his nerves tingling, and more than once he stopped, and could scarcely prevent himself from turning and speeding back to the beach, where at least there was nothing to cause him fresh tremors.

Near the top of the cliff the wood thinned away somewhat, and when he reached its highest point he found himself on a stretch of greensward. Northward the ground sloped gently down to a clump of trees, of a species unknown to him, tall, with slender trunks, which it seemed to him he could climb as easily as the masts on the Maid Marian. He made his way to them, half minded to swarm up the tallest of the group, so that from its summit he might gain a view, possibly, over the whole island, and solve the question that