the last parting!"

"Give my jewelry and things to Bess's baby!" I found strength to
call back. What with the wallowing of the steamer and the natural
instability of rope-ladders I seemed a mere atom tossed about in a
swaying, reeling universe. _What will Aunt Jane do_? flashed
through my mind, and I wished I had waited to see. Then the arms
of the Honorable Mr. Vane received me. The strong rowers bent
their backs, and the boat shot out over the mile or two of bright
water between us and the island. Great slow swells lifted us. We
dipped with a soothing, cradle-like motion. I forgot to be afraid,
in the delight of the warm wind that fanned our cheeks, of the
moonbeams that on the crest of every ripple were splintered
to a thousand dancing lights. I forgot fear, forgot Miss
Higglesby-Browne, forgot the harshness of the Scotch character.

"Oh, glorious, glorious!" I cried to Cuthbert Vane.

"Not so dusty, eh?" he came back in their ridiculous English slang.
Now an American would have said _some little old moon that_! We
certainly have our points of superiority.

All around the island white charging lines of breakers foamed on
ragged half-seen reefs. You saw the flash of foam leaping half the
height of the black cliffs. The thunder of the surf was in our
ears, now rising to wild clamor, fierce, hungry, menacing, now
dying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of the
great shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing.
The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from the
island to the ship, passed us with a hail. We steered warily away