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260 out to the final snub-posts. Her stern loomed large, grew veiled and insubstantial, dissolved, and with the "chock-chock" of oars and lowing of disconsolate cows, the Rapscallion had become a name and pictured vanity of the past. The breath of her departure swept their dim group on the pier, in ponderous-rolling smoke as of some cold, noiseless battle.

"Why did n't ye go with her, Zing?" said the captain suddenly. "Follansbee promised me to offer ye the place."

The mate turned his face away; but for the first time in history he made a blunt answer.

"Did n't want to," he declared. This plunge made him dare another boldness.—"Come on home now, cap'n. No more to see."

"Well, cap'n, all over," called Bunty Gildersleeve, lurching up beside them, his beard a frosty silver with the damp. "Ye know, I kind o' miss her already. W'arf don't seem the same."

"Do ye?" replied Captain Christy, in a dazed fashion. "Yes, that's so." He stared