Had they missed us yet?
Should I ever be back in the familiar house, or--but I dared not think of that.

Then I tried to pray, and the sins of my boyhood came up before my mind as I did so in terrible array, so that I vowed, if but my life might be spared, I would begin a new and better life from that time forward.

Then, by a strange impulse, my eyes rested on Charlie, as he sat there quietly holding the tiller in his hands and gazing out ahead into the darkness.

What was it that filled me with foreboding and terror as I looked at the boy?
The scene of the morning recurred to my mind, and my halfhearted effort to prevent him from accompanying us.

Selfish wretch that I had been! what would I not now give to have been resolute then?
If anything were to happen to Charlie, how could I ever forgive myself?
"I think we've made some way," he cried out cheerily.