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d all but fell before, close to the boat again, he laid Gaston down upon the rocks. "We must bale out the boat, Marie-Louise," he shouted, wading quickly into the water; "or with what we take in on the way back she will not ride. See, I will hold it while you bale--it will be easier for you." She answered something as she set instantly to work, but her words were lost in the storm. And Jean, through the darkness, as he gripped at the boat, watched her, his mind a sea of turmoil like the turmoil of the sea about him. Gaston was hurt--yes, very badly hurt, it would seem--how had it happened?--how had they come, Marie-Louise and Gaston, to be upon the Perigeau?--and he, who had given up hope, who had thought to perish out there in that crossing, he, too, was on the Perigeau--the way to get back was to run straight in with the bay--it would not be so hard if they could out-race the waves--if the waves came in over the stern it would be to swamp and--God had been very good to let them live and-- Marie-Louise's hand closed over his on the gunwale. "It is done, Jean--what I could do," she said. "I will hold the boat again while you lift Uncle Gaston in." And suddenly Jean's heart was very full. "Marie-Louise, Marie-Louise!" he said hoarsely--and while her hands grasped the rocking boat, his crept around the wet shoulders for an instant, and to her face, and turned the face upward to his, and, in that wild revelry of storm, kissed her; and with a choked sob he went from her then and picked up the unconscious form upon the rocks. And so they started back. There was no sweep of tide to battle with now--the waves bore them high and shot them onward, shoreward; and the storm was wings to them. But there was danger yet; on the top of the crests it was like a pivot, each one threatening to whirl them broadside and capsize them on the breathless rush down the steep slope that yawned below--that, and the fear that the downward rush, breathless as it was, would not be fast enough to escape the crest itself, which, following them always, hanging over them like hesitant doom far up above, trembling, twisting, writhing, might break in a seething torrent and, sweeping over them, engulf them. It was not so hard now, the way back, there was not the pitiless current that numbed the soul because the body was so frail; but all the craft Jean knew, all the strength that was his was in play again. The boat swept onward.
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