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 smaller, so surely they were making headway.

One minute Freckles was buoyant with hope, and then the next he was sure they would both sleep in the Caribbean sea with poor Tom Kennedy.

Finally, when despair of ever reaching the coast had clutched Freckles, although he knew it was not far distant, his foot touched something hard. He reached about frantically with it and discovered that he was standing on solid beach. Almost at the same instant Sir Wilton stood up on solid sand and began walking ashore.

They had reached the shore at a spot where the beach was very sloping, and this had saved them two hundred feet of swimming and perhaps their lives.

Eagerly and gratefully they waded ashore, and when they were once up on firm land, Sir Wilton shook himself, and then with a deep sigh lay down to rest.

Freckles knew by this that he was all in.