he
swing of the swell was awful, and the darkness of the blind night too
cruel for words.

"If only I had this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I
could get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been
forgivable even had he not been a sailor.

He missed her, groped desperately, to the verge of suffocation, and
came up to cough, and groan, and pump breath enough to take him down
again. It would have cost five minutes to get his clothes off, and
there was not a single second to spare--now.

"See her?" he shrieked.

"Ne'er a sign," Bill Hardacre shouted. "But we'll catch her when she
rises. Take a turn o' the line round you, sir, so's we can haul you
in--"

But there was not even time for that in the frightful race of these
vital moments. She was gone, and she must be found, and there was but
her husband to look for her. The two other men were few enough for the
safety of the launch as she was then situated; and besides, Hardacre
could be more useful to Lily above water than below. The neighbouring
ships lay undisturbed, putting off no boats to help. In all that band
of lights ringing the black welter of the bay, like stars out of the
Infinite, shining calmly upon an abandoned world, not one was moving.

Guthrie Carey gave a last look round, identified the window of what was
to have been his home, where the fire was burning brightly, the little
supper spread, good Mrs Hardacre watching for them at the door--heard
the landlady's cousin wailing, "Lil! Lil!"--and again plunged under,
arms wide and eyes staring, and heart bursting with despair. Everything
in him seemed bursting--an agonising sensation--as his overstrained
lungs collapsed, and the power of his strong limbs failed him; then
everything seemed to break away and let in the floods of Lethe with a
rush--confusion and forgetfulness and a whirl of dreams, settling to a
strange peace, an irresistible sleep, as if he had swallowed a magic
opiate. The sea took him, as a nurse takes a helpless child, and
floated him up from the place where he had been savagely groping;
something met him half-way, floating down upon him, and his arms went
round it of their own accord. But they were powerless to clasp or hold
it. It passed him, sinking gently, and lay where it sank, under all the
turmoil, as still as the rocking tide would let it.

The launch sounded her steam whistle furiously. From both sides of the
bay it was heard, screeching through t