Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/230

220 "Good God!" he cried, "save me from this death, and I will yet be an honest man."

The doctor, as the lurching of the ship and shifting of movable fittings permitted, proceeded calmly with the calculations with which he had proposed to pass the spare hours of the voyage.

His mind, however, would wander onward to scenes he had hoped he was nearing. Again he stood on the quay, felt the pressure of loving hands, those from whom he seemed so long to have been parted. Above the tumult of the elements he almost seemed to hear his daughter's voice singing, as so often before, 'Rocked in the cradle of the deep.' He hummed the familiar tune to the accompaniment of his hand on the empty saloon table. A smile settled on his countenance. "Soon," he mused, "we shall be there, if it is to be; if not, all is well."

He was awakened from his reverie, not an unpleasant one, by the shouting of officers, scrambling of slippery feet upon the treacherous deck, and, above all, by the cry ringing from end to end of the bounding vessel, "Breakers ahead."

"Ah," he murmured, "the end of the voyage may be near. It will have to come some day. I can do no good on deck." He looked at his watch. "Five o'clock; thank God we have daylight," he said.

"Make ready the boats," was shouted down the companion way. A wave of spent water followed and swept along the floor of the saloon: In a moment all hands were on deck. The dark outline of a cliff was looming out of the morning haze. To right and left, a mile or so away, the waves were hurling themselves scores of feet high, against two low headlands. These were the extremities of a small island towards which the vessel