'Alas, what sighs from our boding hearts
The infinite skies have borne away!'

sings a poet of our time; and the same thought lies in many hearts
unexpressed, and sighed itself away in this heart of our Jarvis Waring
that still foggy evening on the beach.

The middle of the night, the long watch before dawn; ten chances to
one against his awakening! A shape is moving towards the bags hanging
on the distant tree. How the sand crunches,--but he sleeps on. It
reaches the bags, this shape, and hastily, rifles them; then it steals
back and crosses the sand again, its moccasined feet making no sound.
But, as it happened, that one chance (which so few of us ever see!)
appeared on the scene at this moment and guided these feet directly
towards a large, thin, old shell masked with newly blown sand; it
broke with a crack; Waring woke and gave chase. The old man was
unarmed, he had noticed that; and then such a simple-minded, harmless
old fellow! But simple-minded, harmless old fellows do not run like
mad if one happens to wake; so the younger pursued. He was strong, he
was fleet; but the shape was fleeter, and the space between them grew
wider. Suddenly the shape turned and darted into the water, running
out until only its head was visible above the surface, a dark spot in
the foggy moonlight. Waring pursued, and saw meanwhile another dark
spot beyond, an empty skiff which came rapidly inshore-ward, until it
met the head, which forthwith took to itself a body, clambered in,
lifted the oars, and was gone in an instant.

'Well,' said Waring, still pursuing down the gradual slope of the
beach, 'will a phantom bark come at my call, I wonder? At any rate I
will go out as far as he did and see.' But no; the perfidious beach at