We were floating in the cup of
a dead volcano, broken on the seaward side; and broken many hundreds
of years ago--for on our starboard hand, by the edge of the rent,
swept down a slope of turf, cropped by the gales, green as an English
park; with a thread of a stream dropping to a small wilderness of
ferns, and, through this, to plash upon a miniature beach of pink
sand, on the edge of which the sea scarcely lapped. Sea-birds of
many kinds circled and squawked overhead. Yet it was not our boat
that had frightened them.
"They had risen in alarm at the sound of barking, high up the slope.
A dog came leaping down it, tore through the fern, and, as our boat
drew to shore, raced to and fro by the water's edge, barking wildly
in an ecstasy of welcome. A yellow dog, Roddy--a largish yellow
dog--and, as I live by food, the living image of my murdered Billy!"
NIGHT THE NINETEENTH.
THE CASTAWAYS.
(Foe's Narrative Continued.)
"A miracle? Well, I had always supposed poor Billy to be a mongrel
of such infinite variety of descent that the world might never hope
to behold his like.
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