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Rh Judith have got there—with her men—and dry ammunition?"

"Don't ask me. Going on my experience with the lady, I'd be willing to bet she was picked up by the steamer that ran us down, and proceeded to make a prize of it—or tried to. Perhaps she found or stole a boat from somebody; she couldn't have made Norton's Reef by swimming—it's too far. That's, the answer, they were picked up, stole a boat, and piled it up on the reef."

"And there's no hope!"

"If we could make the mainland and get help. …"

His accents died away into a disconsolate silence that held unbroken for more than an hour. Rose went back to her place in the bow, crouched there, a huddled shape of wretchedness; and in the stern sat Barcus submerged in a dejection no less profoundly dismal, his gaze directed vacantly at his feet.

Alan was delivered into the hands of the enemy; defeated in the game he had played with such brave spirit—his life for the forfeit.

Brief though their friendship was in actual duration of time, Barcus had come to hold the man in such affection as only is possible between men who have faced danger and endured hardship shoulder to shoulder.