Page:James Hopper--Caybigan.djvu/205

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COMING OF THE MAESTRA
189

a paddle, but was now only a handle without blade. The memory of the manner in which this transformation had taken place sent his eyes back over the water behind, and a frown came on his face. Right and left, with a movement regular as that of a sentinel pacing his beat, a black fin like a butcher's cleaver was cutting the water.

"What's the matter, Lad?" asked the young lady, still stooping over the dog, and astonished at the silence. "Can't you find the oars?"

"Well, no; fact is—these boats have no oars."

"Oh," cried the bride, immediately interested by this picturesque fact, and rising to her feet; "don't they have any oars? How do you make them go?"

"Paddle them, usually," answered the groom ruefully.

Her eyes fell upon the lamentable remains of the lone paddle, and suddenly the air was a-thrill with a joyous laughing peal.

"Oh, how jolly!" she exclaimed. "We're shipwrecked, aren't we? We'll go away out in the ocean, won't we? Isn't this a land of adventure, though!"

"Well, rather," said the Maestro dryly.

And, there being nothing else to do, he sat down at the bottom of the boat and drew her to his knees. She, with feminine altruism, completed the chain by tak-