But no one else said anything; perhaps they were all too much ashamed,
even then.

"I have only done my duty," Seymour answered from the water. "How far is
it to the shore?"

"About three miles," shouted Thompson. "But keep on that plank, or you
will never live through the rollers. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," answered Robert.

Then the boat passed away from him and soon vanished in the misty face
of the deep.

Resting on the plank which had saved the life of Mrs. Jeffreys, Robert
Seymour looked about him and listened. Now and again he heard a faint,
choking scream uttered by some drowning wretch, and a few hundred yards
away caught sight of a black object which he thought might be a boat. If
so, he reflected that it must be full. Moreover, he could not overtake
it. No; his only chance was to make for the shore. He was a strong
swimmer, and happily the water was almost as warm as milk. There seemed
to be no reason why he should not reach it, supported as he was by a
lifebelt, if the sharks would leave him alone, which they might, as
there was plenty for them to feed on. The direction he knew well enough,
for now in the great silence of the sea he could hear the boom of the
mighty rollers breaking on the beach.

Ah, those rollers! He remembered how that very afternoon Benita and he
had watched them through his field glass sprouting up against the cruel