“This yere’s wastin’ valooable time,” said Hansom, decidedly.  I forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help us.  Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,—­a clear-eyed, open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as instinctively as a rheumatic man turns to the sun.

I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us that night.  I have confused memories of searching shore and cliffs and caves; of touching at little islands and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo which answered our shouting; of the look that settled little by little about Dr. Sharpe’s mouth; of the sobbing of the low wind; of the flare of lanterns on gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed like nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in the bottom of the boat, and of wondering confusedly what they would do with my travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw—­I was the first to see it—­little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor’s eyes when we should turn.

It was there that we heard the first cry.

“It’s shoreward!” said Hansom.

“It is seaward!” cried the Doctor.

“It is behind us!” said I.

Where was it?  A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four times in rapid succession,—­hushing suddenly,—­breaking into shrieks like a frightened child’s,—­dying plaintively down.

We struggled desperately after it, through the fog.  Wind and water took the sound up and tossed it about.  Confused and bewildered, we beat about it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our left,—­crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,—­beckoning us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly.

The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he groped with them like a man struck blind.

“To die there,—­in my very hearing,—­without a chance—­”

And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased.

He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:—­

“It must be only for a moment, you know.  We shall hear it again,—­I am quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!”

Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, snapped an oar and overturned a lantern.  Some drift-wood, covered with slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet.  I remember that a little disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up for a moment to his cheek.

Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:—­