The alternative brought back strength to my arms.  I threw off the ominous influence.  I leaned to my sculls.  The clammy black rocks began deliberately to march by me down-stream.  I was making headway, and the more way I made, the more my courage grew.

Presently, as I battled round a point, I heard a rustle and a rush of something coming, and the bowsprit of a large sloop glided into view close by me.  She was painted in stripes of all colors above her green bottom.  The shimmer of the water shook the reflection of her hull, and made the edges of the stripes blend together.  It was as if a rainbow had suddenly flung itself down for me to sail over.

I looked up and read the name on her headboards, “James Silt.”

At the same moment a child’s voice over my head cried, “Oh, brother Charles! what a little boy! what a pretty boat!”

The gliding sloop brought the speaker into view.  She was a girl both little and pretty.  A rosy, blue-eyed, golden-haired sprite, hanging over the gunwale, and smiling pleasantly at me.

“Yes, Betty,” the voice of a cheerful, honest-looking young fellow at the tiller—­evidently brother Charles—­replied.  “He’s a little chap, but he’s got a man into him.  Hurrah!”

“Give way, ‘Aladdin!’ Stick to it!  You’re sure to get there.”

The sloop had slid along by me now, so that I could read her name repeated on her stern—­“James Silt, New Haven.”

“Good-bye, little boy!” cried my cherubic vision to me, flitting aft, and leaning over the port davit.

“Good-bye, sissy!” I returned, and raising my voice, I hailed, “Good-bye, Cap’n Silt!”

Brother Charles looked puzzled an instant.  Then he gave a laugh, and shouted across the broadening interval of burnished water, “You got my name off the stern.  Well, it’s right, and you’re a bright one.  You’ll make a sailor!  Good luck to you!”

He waved his cap, and the strong tide swept his craft onward, dragging her rainbow image with her.

As far as I could see, the fair-haired child was leaning over the stern watching me, and brother Charles, at intervals, turned and waved his cap encouragingly.

This little incident quite made a man of me again.  I forgot the hard face I had seen, and brother Charles’s frank, merry face took its place, while, leaning over brother Charles’s shoulder, was that angelic vision of his sister.

Under the inspiring influence of Miss Betty’s smiles—­a boy is never so young as not to conduct such electricity—­I pulled along at double speed.  I no longer measured my progress by the rocks in the mud, but by the cottages and villas on the bank.  Now that I had found friends on board one of the vessels arrowing by, it seemed as if all would prove freighted with sympathizing people if they would only come near enough to hail.  But I was content with the two pleasant faces stamped on my memory, and only minded my business of getting home before dark.