When Captain Ichabod left the Island in haste to get medical help for the unconscious Ethel Marion, Doctor Gifford Garnet stood before the shack and watched the red skiff as it rose and fell on the billows until it was well on its way to Beaufort. Then, with a smile of satisfaction, he turned and entered the abode where the girl was lying with no sign of life save the gentle rhythm of the bosom as it rose and fell with her breathing. Now, once again, he knelt by the bedside. For a little, he stroked the forehead with deft fingers, then touched her wrist and counted the pulse. It was evident that he found the condition of his patient satisfactory, for a pleased expression came in place of the anxiety that had hitherto marked his features.

Leaving the bedside, Doctor Garnet went to the kitchen stove, where he opened the oven door and took out the batteries he had removed from the little cedar tender. The intense heat of the oven had thoroughly dried these, so that they were again in working condition, together with the spark coil. The Doctor carried the attachments from the shack to the launch, in which he installed them. This accomplished, he succeeded, after a great deal of straining effort, in getting launched the small craft, which had been left high up on the sand. By means of an oar, he paddled the boat around to the Captain's miniature wharf. He made it fast here and then busied himself in tuning up the engine. When at last it was running smoothly, he threw in the clutch, and steered the launch toward the wreck of The Isabel. As he neared the oyster rocks, he slowed down the engine, and ran directly over the sunken part of the vessel. There, he peered intently over the side into the depths of the water. Of a sudden, he drew back as if in fright, and his face became ghastly pale. He threw in the clutch and steered at full speed back for the landing. One glimpse of the dead eyes glaring up at him had sufficed. Though he was a physician, inured to dreadful sights, he quailed before this hideous spectacle.

At the landing, he hurriedly made the boat fast, and then ran swiftly to the shack. He disappeared for a moment inside, and then came forth bearing his medicine case and blankets. He stowed the case in the launch and spread out the blankets in the bow. This done, he returned to the shack. When he issued from it again, he staggered under a burden almost too great for his strength—the unconscious form of Ethel Marion. He bore her with what haste he could to the landing and gently placed her within the blankets.

At this moment, Doctor Garnet looked in all reality the part of a wild man. He was coatless and hatless. The strong breeze made new tangles in his already disheveled hair. Then, through long seconds, he stood staring bleakly at the distorted and broken yacht. Abruptly there came from his lips a weird wail of distress. That cry meant that everything good in life was over for him. His face set in sullen lines, as he loosed the painter and seated himself aft by the engine. He opened the throttle, and, heading to the northward, soon left the sands of Ichabod's Island and those staring eyes of the dead man far behind.

So absorbed had the Doctor been in his purpose of flight that he failed even to see the action of Shrimp. Just as the launch began to move away from the wharf, the rooster leaped lightly to the forward deck. It never occurred to him that he might be unwelcome. He entered the boat as he would have the skiff for a voyage with Ichabod. He was a sociable bird, and fond of a cruise. When the opportunity offered he seized on it with pleased promptness. By the time that Doctor Gifford Garnet chanced to observe Shrimp's presence, the launch was at such a distance from the Island that it would have been folly for him to turn back for the sake of restoring the creature to its place.

The launch tossed and pitched dangerously when it came into the broad reaches of Core Sound. It seemed indeed at times that it must inevitably be swamped. But the Doctor had skill and daring, and now, in the face of this new danger, he was cool and resourceful. Here there were no rocks to increase the danger as there had been at Ichabod's Island, and eventually he guided the launch to safety under the lea of the wooded shore of the mainland.

The first intention of Garnet was to make a landing in order to await the coming of night, when, as he knew from past experiences, the wind would almost certainly fall, after which the voyage could be resumed without danger and in comparative comfort. The Doctor found, however, that his plan was impossible of execution. To his discomfiture, he perceived that the heavily wooded shore was nothing other than a vast swamp, without anywhere a dry spot on which to step foot. Upon making this discovery, he allowed the boat to drift a short distance away from the land, and then dropped overboard the tiny anchor.

After the launch was made secure, the Doctor took from his pocket the hypodermic syringe. The vial accompanying it, however, was empty. Garnet searched feverishly through his medicine case, at first in despair, for he feared that he had no more of the drug. But at last he uttered an ejaculation of triumph as he drew forth a small bottle of the narcotic. He removed the cork and dropped the pellets into the............