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78 shoals of fish quick and startling to the touch, and at last pulled himself out, shedding glow-worm drops, upon the round stones of the sea-wall. Here he waited. But by the torches, the other boats seemed to be looking for something. He dimly saw men pulled aboard, and still the search went on. No one came to join him. Then he remembered a little ledge offshore, bare at low tide. The others must have swum to that. He grew very cold as he waited; still the torches hovered aimlessly in the distance; and at last, with teeth chattering in the night air of autumn, he clambered over the breakneck stones, followed the inside curve of the wall, until, after many falls and infinite groping, he stumbled upon his coat. Carefully drying his hands in the beach-grass, he hunted matches out of the pocket. Old grass, broken fish-flakes, and cedar shavings from weir-poles, soon snapped and blazed on the pebbles. He sat drying himself as well as might be, and waited for news of this sudden and strange mishap. He was uneasy over the stroke he had dealt with the oar; yet