Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/70

58 "What a fool I was to think of dying! I would have quit cold."

Carefully guiding himself along by bulwark and rail, across the slanting deck he made his way. The ship's prow was deeper under the foam. Only a moment, perhaps two or three, was the margin between life with Sally—and death. There was no time to construct a raft, and the life-boats were gone. With deft quick fingers he lashed himself to a spar, and was clear of the wreck but a few powerful strokes when the stern rose into the air and her nose plunged for the last time. The suction almost dragged him down after the expiring ship, but after a fathom's submergence he floated free.

And strangely, as he rose and fell on the buoyant waves, and star after star came out, he felt, not dismay, but peace and hope. And memories, not the scarlet rosary whose telling, they say, no drowning man can escape, but glimpses of a girl, in all her varying moods and adorable ways, came and sustained him.

Then broke the dawn, at first just the promise of light, then a mirage of rose, the golden flood tide, and at last the jocund sun himself, like a perfect yellow coin lost from the purse of some old freebooter who once roved these waters, stood balanced on the far rim of the sea.

The hours passed. Once, a faint feather of smoke, two tiny needles of masts, and a thin line of hull, betrayed a far away steamer. But it, too, passed, like a sick man's fancy. And the lonely sailor felt sick all over, and parched and faint in the sun. Now and then he swam a little but his strength was weakening.