"The fleet has passed down the coast on its way to Blackhaven," he mused. "Oh! for a chance to get to the mainland."
For a time he was in hopes that some fishing craft, or small boat, might pass within hail. But nothing of the kind occurred.
"I've got to get something to eat pretty soon," thought Ned, who was beginning to feel faint, "or--hullo! where have I seen that log before?"
His gaze was riveted on a big spar that was drifting idly through the arm of sea that swept between him and the land.
"I saw that fellow go through here last night; the tide must have turned and it's drifting back. Well, that settles it. There's almost as much water and current in there at low water as at high."
He fell to pacing the beach moodily. Once in desperation he waded into the turbid water and essayed to swim. But he was instantly swept from his feet, and a strong undertow seized on his legs and drew them down. When, panting and trembling, he stood once more on shore, he resolved not to risk his life in that manner again.
"An elephant couldn't swim that," he said to himself sadly.
All at once he looked up, from one of his despairing moods, to see something that caused him to choke and gasp with hope. Bobbing about on the water, not a hundred yards from the shore, was--of all things--a small boat!
Would the current drift it within his reach, or would it be carried tantalizingly past him? At the moment he gave little thought as to how it came to be there. It was enough for him that it was a boat, and offered--providing he could reach it--a means of getting to the mainland.
In an agony of apprehension he watched the little craft as it came on, dancing merrily on the choppy ripples of the inlet. Now it shot in toward the shore, as if it meant to drive bow-on upon the beach, and then, as Ned sprang forth to grasp it, the current would sweep it out of his reach. At last it was abreast of him, and in the next second it had passed beyond. Ned grew desperate.
"Better die in the effort to get to land than perish here of starvation and thirst," he thought.
Without bothering to kick his shoes off he sprang into the water, which was deep right up to the margin of the shore, and swam out after the boat.