"You have won!" said Magloire, stooping over the coin which had fallen on the ground.

Dr. Quiès lifted up his hands and eyes, and, without a word to M. Bonamy or to Magloire, hurried away almost at

a run, fleeing from the sight of the boat in which there was safety, but which he could not enter.

"Quiès!" cried M. Bonamy, "you are mad!" The doctor was already too far off to hear him. "Magloire," said he, "run, bring him back!"

"No, sir, no."

"What?"

"The destiny of a savant must not be thwarted."

"But the poor wretch will perish here, miserably, without aid-"

"I am here, sir.”

"You remain, then, Magloire ?"

"Yes, sir."

'So," growled M. Bonamy, "through the obstinacy of these two madmen, I am to be forced to stay here, a prisoner on this rock, without food, without shelter-"

"You, sir? but you are quite free to go away. The land is not far of, and the sail is set."

M. Bonamy was visibly a prey to painful hesitation, and this ought to be recorded to his praise. Nevertheless, he had got into the boat. He would not, however, have abandoned Dr. Quiès to his fate if Magloire had not given the boat a vigorous push, and shoved it off some feet from the shore, when it instantly scudded before the wind.

Anthime was a very poor mariner. Magloire could see him, for a few minutes, making great efforts to regain the island, but the wind blew freshly and filled the sail; the boat was going at fifteen knots. At the end of an hour it had become an almost imperceptible speck on the sea. A quarter of an hour more, and it had entirely disappeared.

Then Magloire went in search of his master, whom he found at some distance inland in a state of profound dejection.

"Gone?" asked the poor doctor.

"Yes, sir," answered Magloire, rubbing his hands.

"And you have not forsaken me, Magloire ?"

"Oh, sir!"

The doctor's eye was moistened by a tear; he would probably have saved it up for a better occasion, had he been aware of the fresh trick that his servant had played him in his intemperate zeal. Perhaps, also, he might have yielded to a fit of anger equally legitimate and useless.

When wine is poured out it must be drunk.

Alas! they had not even the thinnest of wine; and, in deference to the claims of truth, it must be acknowledged that when forty-eight hours had elapsed, bringing home to Magloire the conviction that his master, although a member of fifty learned societies, was inferior to Robinson, he repented him that he had played so bold a game. When three days had elapsed, his regret had deepened into remorse, and at the end of a week he would have given his right hand for M. Bonamy's boat. The island proved to be more barren than he had supposed. No food of any kind except mussels was to be found there. Now, mussels form a dainty article of diet, but-to eat them, and nothing else, at every meal, without salt, and without bread! The doctor and Magloire himself could no longer swallow more of them than barely sufficed to still the pangs of hunger.

Nevertheless the doctor became hardly at all thinner. Probably it was not in his nature to do so; but his health failed daily, his mental faculties seemed weakened. He no longer spoke, except very rarely, and then his words were vague and unconnected. Such a trial as this, was, seemingly, beyond his endurance.

Magloire, although a stronger man, was very little better than his master after five weeks of this unfortunate experience. He wasted away to a skeleton, and his high spirits disappeared. He sat all day huddled-up on the shore, searching the horizon with his eyes, and only summoned up strength in the evening to light a big fire of weeds and brushwood, as a signal of distress which a passing ship might perceive and understand.

In the morning the fire was extinct, the island was still desert, the horizon showed no sail. But all this did not prevent him from doing the same thing the next evening. He clung to life, and even in this deplorable extremity he preserved a ray of hope, while the unhappy doctor no longer entertained the least spark. Without will, without