“He’s probably gone by this time, anyhow,” he told himself, and drove on.

The convict, however, was not yet quite “gone”; as the boat receded rapidly from view, becoming smaller and smaller, he continued mechanically to use his arms.  But he had as little heart as little strength to go on with the uneven contest.

“He’s done me! done me!” he repeated to himself.  “And I ain’t never goin’ to git a chance to fix him,” he thought, and looked despairingly at the sky.  The dark rushing clouds looked like black demons; the stars they uncovered were bright gleaming dagger points.  “Ain’t never!—­the slob!” And with a flood of almost sobbing invective he let himself go.

But as the waters closed over him and he sank, his hand, reaching blindly out to grip in imagination the foe, touched something round—­like a serpent, or an eel.  His fingers closed about it—­it proved to be a line; he drew himself along, and to his surprise found himself again on the surface, and near a great fragment of wreckage.  This he might have discovered earlier, but for the anger and hatred that had blinded him to all save the realization of his inability to wreak vengeance.  Now, though he managed to reach the edge of the swaying mass from which the line dangled, he was too weak to draw himself up on the floating timbers.  But he did pass a loop beneath his arms, and, thus sustained, he waited for his strength to return.  Finally, his mind in a daze, the convict clambered, after repeated efforts, upon the wreckage, fastened the line about him again, and, falling into a saucer-like hollow, he sank into unconsciousness.

The night wore on; he did not move.  The sea began to subside; still he lay as if dead.  Dawn’s rosy lips kissed away the black shadows, touched tenderly the waves’ tops, and at length the man stirred.  He tried to sit up, but at first could not.  Finally he raised himself and looked about him.

No other sign of the vessel than that part of it which had served him so well could he see; this fragment seemed rent from the bow; yes, there was the yellow wooden mermaid bobbing to the waves; but not as of old!  Poor cast-out trollop,—­now the seas made sport of her who once had held her head so high!

The convict continued to gaze out over the ocean.  Far away, a dark fringe broke the sea-line—­a suggestion of foliage—­an island, or a mirage?  Tantalizing, it lay like a shadow, illusive, unattainable as the “forgotten isles.”  The man staggered to his feet; his garments were torn; his hair hung over his brow.  He shook his arms at the island;—­this phantasy, this vain, empty vision, he regarded it now as some savage creature might a bone just out of its reach; from his lips vile words fell—­to be suddenly hushed.  Between him and what he gazed at, along the range of vision, an object on one of the projecting timbers caught his eye.  It was very small, but it gleamed like a spark sprung from the embers of the dawn.