go gallantly, and without complaint, at the end of a life with
associations, movements, having lived and regretted. I should disappear
in-gloriously on the very threshold.

Castro, standing up unsteadily, growled, "We may do it yet! See, señor!"

The blue gleam was much larger--it flared smokily up towards the sky. I
made out ghastly parallelograms of a ship's sails high above us, and at
last many faces peering unseeingly over the rail in our direction. We
all shouted together.

I may say that it was thanks to me that we reached the ship. Our boat
went down under us whilst I was tying a rope under Carlos' arms. He
was standing up with the baler still in his hand. On board, the women
passengers were screaming, and as I clung desperately to the rope that
was thrown me, it struck me oddly that I had never before heard so many
women's voices at the same time. Afterwards, when I stood on the deck,
they began laughing at old Rangsley, who held forth in a thunderous
voice, punctuated by hiccoughs:

"They carried I aboard--a cop--theer lugger and sinks I in the cold,
co--old sea."

It mortified me excessively that I should be tacked to his tail and
exhibited to a number of people, and I had a sudden conviction of my
small importance. I had expected something altogether different--an
audience sympathetically interested in my desire for a passage to the
West Indies; instead of which people laughed while I spoke in panting
jerks, and the water dripped out of my clothes. After I had made it
clear that I wanted to go with Carlos, and could pay for my passage,