The Carlisle independent., 1917-07-26

though little heavy with water, in no danger of sinking.
 He clambered in. and. to his delight, found that the oars and water cask. as well as the scraps of food, had rolled beneath a thwart. He took the oars and pulled.
 And he laughed as he reflected that 1t made no difference in which direc- ton he pulled. Death confronted him every way upon the breast of the South Atlantic, with no land within four hundred miles in any direction.
 Jerry set his course in a southerly direction.
 craft forward. All day he searched the horizon to find some trace of a passing ship, but always in vain. He was far out of the course of ocean travel And night fell, and the scraps of food were gone.
 Dawn found him half delirious from want of sleep and fatigue. The sea was running heavier. and he had to bail ceaselessly. The third day he pulled like an automaton. The heav- ing waves. across which he had to set his course to keep the boat from foun- dering, the gray sky that never admit ted sunlight. seemed like an eternity in monotone engulfing him. Often he lost consciousness of his whereabouts, and in fancy was back in Porto Del gado with Leontine again, and the man who had endured his privations was another.
 What awakened him from lethargy which would have been ended by drowning was the sudden discovery that his water supply was gone
 He had drunk without knowing that he was drinking; mechanically his hands and lips and throat had gone through the acts necessary to retain life within the body. But. suddenly he realized that he was crouching in choppy sea above the empty cask. And with this realization the dreams faded. Clear-headed, but weak, Jerry looked death in the face as he thought before the monsters final spring.
 Then, with cry of joy, he realized that not five miles distant, to port, and disappearing behind him, was spit of land hardly elevated above the surface at that distance.
 He had been passing it; in another half hour he would have missed it.
 With eager hands he pulled the boat around. and. putting about, began to pull with all his might toward the ledge.
 Suddenly, with a crash, the boat went hard and fast upon a rock 4 needle fang pierced her. She began to fill. Jerry sprang out, chung to the rock, felt bottom, and began to wade through the icy water until he emerged, high, but not dry, upon the shelving sand.
 A little cave in the base of the low cliff gaped at his side. He crept into it and never knew he fell asleep. x
 When he opened his eyes the sun, days, was high in the sky The warm sunshine flooded the island and beam, entering the cave, danced on the jagged rock.
 Jerry did not at first remember what had happened. It took some min utes before the recollection of that nightmare in the boat had filtered through the gates of his mind.
 He was apparently upon a tiny un- charted island in the Atlantic pound ed necessarily by the great waves that spent their fury on the shelving sands. What he had thought a line of cliffs was merely groups of rocks. divided by rillets of fresh water that bounded down from the acclivity above. Upon the other side of the islet the beating of the breakers could be heard plainly.
 He ascended the low slope, and saw the Atlantic flashing at the strip of shore beyond. The isle was barely a quarter of a mile in breadth, and per haps a mile long. It was the summit of submerged mountain, bare. tree less, thinly covered with sparse grasses, and absolutely uninhabited.
 Stumbling down toward his cave. Jerry had his wits almost shaken by