, and seeing forgot the present in
some vision of the future.

"Come, Adam! I am waiting."

His eye came back, the lost look passed, and cheerily he answered--

"I am ready."

A fortnight later in that dark hour before the dawn, with a murky sky
above them, a hungry sea below them, the two stood together the last to
leave a sinking ship.

"Room for one more, choose quick!" shouted a hoarse voice from the boat
tossing underneath, freighted to the water's edge with trembling lives.

"Go, Geoffrey, Sylvia is waiting."

"Not without you, Adam."

"But you are exhausted; I can bear a rough hour better than yourself,
and morning will bring help."

"It may not. Go, I am the lesser loss."

"What folly! I will force you to it; steady there, he is coming."

"Push off, I am _not_ coming."

In times like that, few pause for pity or persuasion; the instinct of
self-preservation rules supreme, and each is for himself, except those
in whom love of another is stronger than love of life. Even while the
friends generously contended the boat was swept away, and they were left
alone in the deserted ship, swiftly making its last voyage downward.
Spent with a day of intense excitement, and sick with hope deferred,
Moor leaned on Warwick, feeling that it was adding bitterness to death
to die in sight of shore. But Warwick never knew despair; passive
submission was not in his power while anything remained to do or dare,
and even then he did not cease to hope. It was certain death to linger
there; other boats less heavily laden had put off before, and might
drift across their track; wreckers waiting on the shore might hear and
help; at least it were better to die bravely and not "strike sail to a
fear." About his waist still hung a fragment of the rope which had
lowered more than one baby to its mother's arms; before them the
shattered taffrail rose and fell as the waves beat over it. Wrenching a
spar away he lashed Moor to it, explaining his purpose as he worked.
There was only rope enough for one, and in the darkness Moor believed
that Warwick had taken equal precautions for himself.

"Now Geoffrey your hand, and when the next wave ebbs let us follow it.
If we are parted and you see her first tell her I remembered, and give
her this."

In the black night with only Heaven to see them the men kissed tenderly
as women, then hand in hand sprang out into the sea. Drenched and
blinded they struggled up after the first plunge, and s