solation to reflect that some current might be carrying him in a totally wrong direction, but on the contrary it was just as likely to be taking him toward his goal.
For two hours he kept up the regular stroke with effortless ease, and then for a rest, turned over on to his back. The exercise had helped to steady his nerves. While he lay there the sun rode up over the sky-line and infused the spirit of hope into him. It was a perfect dawn. The world in which the man off the Four Winds had lived recently had not been a particularly perfect one, but that was finished with, anyway—utterly, irrevocably finished with.
He turned over again, and for a long time breasted the oily sea. He was getting tired, but it helped to keep his mind off thoughts which were none too pleasant. He was growing thirsty, with the brine constantly kissing his lips. He watched the sun creep steadily upward until it hung like a ball of fire almost directly overhead. The strain was beginning to tell even on his enormous strength. It was now eighteen hours since he had eaten anything. Occasionally he was annoyed to find his memory playing quaint tricks—catching up incidents of his boyhood and parading them before him now when all his thoughts should be concentrated on the effort of cleaving his way further through the ocean. There was a girl with greenish eyes when he was
