using his hand as a speaking trumpet, for the distance between the boat and the island widened momently. 9. Binny Wallace looked down at the sea, which was covered with white caps, and made a despairing gesture. He knew, and we knew, that the stoutest swimmer could not live forty seconds in those angry waters. 10. A wild, insane light came into Phil Adams's eyes, as he stood knee-deep in the boiling surf; and for an instant I think he meditated plunging into the ocean after the receding boat. 11. The sky darkened, and an ugly look stole rapidly over the broken surface of the sea. Binny Wallace half rose from his seat in the stern, and waved his hand to us in token of farewell. In spite of the distance, increasing every instant, we could see his face plainly. The anxious expression it wore at first had passed. It was pale and meek now; and I love to think there was a kind of halo about it, like that which the painters place around the forehead of a saint. So he drifted away. 12. The sky grew darker and darker. The figure of Binny Wallace was no longer visible, for the boat itself had dwindled to a mere dot on the black water. Finally it went out like a spark, and we saw it no more. Then we gazed at each other, and dared not speak. 13. Absorbed in following the course of the boat, we had scarcely noticed the huddled inky clouds that sagged down all around us. From these threatening masses, seamed at intervals with pale lightning, there now burst a heavy peal of thunder that shook the ground under our feet. 14. It was impossible to keep our footing on the beach any longer. We crawled up the sands on our hands and knees, and, pausing in the lee of the granite ledge to gain breath, returned to the camp. We fell to crying, the three of us, and cried I know not how long. The wind rose higher and higher, cutting long slits in the tent, through which the rain poured incessantly. To complete the sum of our miseries, the night was at hand. It came down suddenly, at last, like a curtain, shutting in Sandpeep Island from all the world. 15. What an endless night it was! I have known months that did not seem so long. Fred Langdon was the first to discover a filmy, luminous streak in the sky, the first glimmering of sunrise. "Look, it is nearly daybreak!" While we were following the direction of his finger, a sound of distant oars fell on our ears. Running down to the water's edge, we hailed the boats with all our might. the oars rested a moment in pulled in towards the island. the town. The call was heard; for the rowlocks, and then It was two boats from 16. Our story was soon told. The sea was still running too high for any small boat to venture out: so it was arranged that one boat should take us back to town; leaving the other with a picked crew, to hug the island until daybreak, and then set forth in search of the Dolphin. 17. The excitement over, I was in a forlorn state. Towards evening a high fever set in; and it was many days before my grandfather deemed it prudent to tell me that the Dolphin had been found, floating keel upwards, four miles southeast of Mackerel Reef. 18. Poor little Binny Wallace! How strange it seemed, when I went to school again, to see that empty seat in the fifth row! One day a folded sheet slipped from my algebra: it was the last note he ever wrote Poor little Binny Wallace! Always the same to me! The rest of us have grown up into hard, worldly men; but you are forever young. Always a little boy, always poor little Binny Wallace! me. LANGUAGE STUDY. I. Write the analysis of: correct (regere); direction (regere); distance (stare); distant (stare); instant (stare); state (stare); visible (videre); expression (premere). What word (1) means grown brisk or strong? Explain "drops of rain came lisping down" (2). What word (4) means said he was willing? Supply other words for those in Italics: "we found the conjecture correct" (6); "I think he meditated plunging into the ocean after the receding boat" (10); "Absorbed in following the course of the boat, we had scarcely noticed the huddled inky clouds that sagged down all around us" (13); "To complete the sum of our miseries, the night was at hand" (14). II. In paragraph 11 are two simple sentences, one complex sentence, and three compound sentences: select those of each type. III. Which is the most pathetic paragraph in this piece? Notice how many short exclamative sentences it contains. 9. The Discoverer. -a-ver', declare, affirm. ehrys'o-līte, a beautiful green kinş'man, relative. precious stone. fâre, live and act. guise, appearance, mien. peers, persons of equal rank. PREPARATORY NOTES. This beautifully tender poem is by Edmund Clarence Stedman (b. 1833), a native of Connecticut. Mr. Stedman's poetry exhibits many moods, but is always refined and artistic, and sometimes exceedingly powerful. In a prose volume ("The Victorian Poets") he has shown himself one of the most subtle and discriminating of modern critics. (1) Drake (Sir Francis); Frobisher (Sir Martin): these were famous English navigators of the sixteenth century.—(1) winged pilot: the Angel of Death. —(1) hoary Mimer's well and tree in the Scandinavian mythology were placed in the far north, "in that mysterious meeting-place of sea and sky:" Mimer was the guardian of "Wisdom's Well." — (3) pricking of his chart: refers to the tracing of a ship's course by means of punctures on a chart. (4) in the groves is taught: an allusion to the grove of Academus, near Athens, under whose olives and plane trees Plato and his followers, called Academic philosophers, taught. (4) farthest Indies: an allusion to the ancient Hindu lore. 1. I have a little kinsman Whose earthly summers are but three, And yet a voyager is he Greater than Drake or Frobisher, Than all their peers together! He is a brave discoverer, And, far beyond the tether Of them who seek the frozen Pole, |