Page:The Great Secret.djvu/109

Rh ended with the beginning of that rope. The doctor had vanished, so also the Princess Sebastopol, who was a strong woman with a tenacious grasp; therefore the others, who could, dashed themselves madly after her and the doctor.

The wreck was being urged again towards the shore, so that the rope slackened and the clingers were submerged, those washed away who lost their presence of mind, still some clung wisely to their only refuge and went on, hand over hand, even although choking with the brine and boil of surf, amongst which they were flung like bits of matchwood.

Anatole had shown wisdom in the direction he had taken, for the rope went slantways from the point towards which the wreck was driven, so that those who clung fast were not crushed between it and the rocks.

She had struck again and was once more drawn back by the waves—a black mass not a third of her original size, yet floating still, thereby showing how wonderfully well she had been joined and proved before beginning this fatal voyage.

And as she drew back with a shiver that made the rope tingle within the despairing hands, it once again became taut, jerking the half-drowned wretches clean into space, for the captain had fastened his end at a height.

Only five survivors were left on that straining rope, as it jerked them out of the surf, the weaker ones having succumbed to the cold and fury of the sea, and these survivors held on more by instinct and desperation than consciousness, for they were dazed and almost senseless with the battering and submerging, while nothing could be heard except that