rong voice.
"_Jean!_"

It was Marie-Louise! His strength was the strength of a god again. He
shot a hurried glance over his shoulder--it was done--but one had need
for care that the boat should not thrash itself to pieces on the rocks.
Yes; he saw her now--like a dark, wind-swept wraith.

"To the right, Jean--there is landing to the right!" she called.

"Ay!" he shouted back; and, standing, swung in the boat.

The bow touched the edge of the rocks, grated, pounded, receded, and
came on again--there was no beach here--only the vicious swirl and chop
of the back-eddy. But as the keel touched again, Jean sprang over into
the water; and as he sprang, a figure from the rocks rushed in waist
deep to grasp the boat's gunwale on the other side--and across the bow,
very close to him, Marie-Louise's white face was framed in the night.
It was very dark, he could not see her features distinctly, but he had
never seen Marie-Louise look like that before--it was not that her face
was aged, nothing, _bon Dieu_! could take the springtime from that
face, but it was very tired, and frightened, and glad, and full of
grief.

"Jean, ah, Jean, you--" the wind carried away her words. Then she
shouted louder, a curious break, like a half sob, in her voice. "Uncle
Gaston is hurt--very, very badly hurt. He is up there a little way on
the reef. You must carry him. And if you hurry, Jean, I can hold the
boat."

"Gaston--hurt!" he cried in dismay. "You are sure then you can hold
the boat, and--"

"Yes, yes, if you hurry, Jean--he is there, a few yards back, a little
to the left."

"Guard yourself then that it does not pull you off your feet!" he
cautioned anxiously, and began to scramble from the water and up the
slippery, weeded rocks.

And then, a few yards back on the ledge, as she had said, just out of
the reach of the spray that lashed the windward side of the Perigeau,
he came upon an outstretched form--and, kneeling, called the other's
name:

"Gaston! It is I--Jean Laparde!" He bent closer--one could not hear
for the _diable_ wind! "Gaston!" There was only a low moaning--the
man was unconscious. "_'Cre nom d'une forte peine!_" muttered Jean,
with a sinking heart, and picked up the other tenderly in his arms.

But it was not easy, that little way back to the boat. Burdened now,
the wind behind his back sent him staggering forward before he could
find footing, and ten times in the dozen steps he lurched, slipped an