“Oh, ’Laddin,” she said suddenly, “I daren’t go home now.”

“Maybe we can get her in farther up,” said Aladdin, “and go home through the woods.  That’ll be something, anyhow.”

Margaret shuddered.  She thought of the thin aunt who gave her lessons upon the pianoforte—­one of the elect, that aunt, who had never done wrong, and whom any halo would fit; who gave her to understand that the Almighty would raise Cain with any little girl who did not practise an hour every day, and pray Him, night and morning, to help her keep off the black notes when the white notes were intended.  First there would be a reckoning with papa, then one with Aunt Marion, last with Almighty God, and afterward, horribile dictu, pitchforks for little Margaret, and a vivid incandescent state to be maintained through eternity at vast cost of pit-coal to a gentleman who carried over his arm, so as not to step on it, a long snaky tail with a point like a harpoon’s.

Meanwhile, Aladdin made sundry attempts to get the boat ashore, and failed signally.  The current was as saucy as strong.  Now it swept them into the very shade of the trees, and as hope rose hot in the boy’s heart and he began to stab the water with the oars, sent them skipping for the midriver.  Occasionally a fish jumped to show how easy it was, and high overhead an eagle passed statelily in the wake of a cloud.  After the eagle came a V of geese flying south, moving through the treacherous currents and whirlpools of the upper air as steadily and directly as a train upon its track.  It seemed as if nature had conspired with her children to demonstrate to Margaret and Aladdin the facility of precise locomotion.  The narrow deeps of the river ended where the shore rolled into a high knob of trees; above this it spread over the lower land into a great, shallow, swiftly currented lake, having in its midst a long turtlebacked island of dense woods and abrupt shores.  Two currents met off the knob and formed in the direction of the island a long curve of spitting white.  Aladdin rowed with great fervor.

“Do it if you can, ’Laddin,” said the little girl.

It seemed for one moment as if success were about to crown the boy’s effort, for he brought the boat to an exciting nearness to the shore; but that was all.  The current said:  “No, Aladdin, that is not just the place to land; come with me, and bring the boat and the young lady.”  And Aladdin at once went with the current.

“Margaret,” he said, “I done my best.”  He crossed his heart.

“I know you done your best, ’Laddin.”  Margaret’s cheeks were on the brink of tears.  “I know you done it.”

They were dancing sportively farther and farther from the shore.  The water broke, now and again, and slapped the boat playfully.

“We ’ve come ’most three miles,” said Aladdin.

“I daren’t go back if I could now,” said Margaret.

Meanwhile Aladdin scanned the horizon far and wide to see if he could see anything of Antheus, tossed by the winds, or the Phrygian triremes, or Capys, or the ships having upon their lofty poops the arms of Caicus.  There was no help in sight.  Far and wide was the bubbling ruffled river, behind the mainland, and ahead the leafy island.