sheep; save thy servant;" or by threes--"I have gone astray like a lost
sheep; save thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments."

"I shouldn't tell that," he said to us, "if I didn't know so well how
little it counts for. But I knew at the time that when the next day but
one should bring the lighthouse steamer I shouldn't be any more fit to go
ashore, _to stay_, than a jellyfish." We agreed, he and I that there can
be as wide a distance between fine feelings and faithful doing as, he
said, "between listening to the band and charging a battery."

On the islet the night deepened. The moon had not risen, and the stars
only glorified the dark, as it, in turn, revealed the unearthly beauties
of a phosphorescent sea. It was one of those rare hours in which the deep
confessed the amazing numbers of its own living and swarming
constellations. Not a fish could leap or dart, not a sinuous thing could
turn, but it became an animate torch. Every quick movement was a gleam of
green fire. No drifting, flaccid life could pulse so softly along but it
betrayed itself in lambent outlines. Each throb of the water became a beam
of light, and every ripple that widened over the strand--still whispering,
"I have gone astray"--was edged with luminous pearls.

In an agreeable weariness of frame, untroubled in mind, and counting the
night too beautiful for slumber he reclined on the dry sands with an arm
thrown over a small pile of fagots which he had spent the day in gathering
from every part of the island to serve his need for the brief remainder of
his stay. In this search he had found but one piece of his boat, a pine
board. This he had been glad to rive into long splinters and bind together
again as a brand, with which to signal the steamer if--contrary to her
practice, I think he said--she should pass in the night. And so, without a
premonition of drowsiness, he was presently asleep, with the hours