A minute later, chancing to open his eyes, he saw the whale-boat, full length, and saw right into it as it rose on the face of a wave.

He saw six sweeps at work, and in the stern, clearly outlined against the overhanging wall of white, a man who stood erect, gigantic, swaying with his weight on the steering-sweep.

This he saw, and an eighth man who crouched in the bow and gazed shoreward.

But what startled Sheldon was the sight of a woman in the stern-sheets, between the stroke-oar and the steersman.

A woman she was, for a braid of her hair was flying, and she was just in the act of recapturing it and stowing it away beneath a hat that for all the world was like his own "Baden-Powell." The boat disappeared behind the wave, and rose into view on the face of the following one.