s, in stupor, with eyes dilated
and sightless,--faces of corpses and madmen. The two children, Giulietta
and Mario, clung to a mast and gazed at the sea with staring eyes, as
though senseless.

The sea had subsided a little; but the vessel continued to sink slowly.
Only a few minutes remained to them.

"Launch the long-boat!" shouted the captain.

A boat, the last that remained, was thrown into the water, and fourteen
sailors and three passengers descended into it.

The captain remained on board.

"Come down with us!" they shouted to him from below.

"I must die at my post," replied the captain.

"We shall meet a vessel," the sailors cried to him; "we shall be saved!
Come down! you are lost!"

"I shall remain."

"There is room for one more!" shouted the sailors, turning to the other
passengers. "A woman!"

A woman advanced, aided by the captain; but on seeing the distance at
which the boat lay, she did not feel sufficient courage to leap down,
and fell back upon the deck. The other women had nearly all fainted, and
were as dead.

"A boy!" shouted the sailors.

At that shout, the Sicilian lad and his companion, who had remained up
to that moment petrified as by a supernatural stupor, were suddenly
aroused again by a violent instinct to save their lives. They detached
themselves simultaneously from the mast, and rushed to the side of the
vessel, shrieking in concert: "Take me!" and endeavoring in turn, to
drive the other back, like furious beasts.

"The smallest!" shouted the sailors. "The boat is overloaded! The
smallest!"

On hearing these words, the girl dropped her arms, as though struck by
lightning, and stood motionless, staring at Mario with lustreless eyes.

Mario looked at her for a moment,--saw the spot of blood on her
bodice,--remembered--The gleam of a divine thought flashed across his
face.

"The smallest!" shouted the sailors in chorus, with imperious
impatience. "We are going!"

And then Mario, with a voice which no longer seemed his own, cried: "She
is the lighter! It is for you, Giulietta! You have a father and mother!
I am alone! I give you my place! Go down!"

"Throw her into the sea!" shouted the sailors.

Mario seized Giulietta by the body, and threw her into the sea.

The girl uttered a cry and made a splash; a sailor seized her by the
arm, and dragged her into the boat.

The boy remained at the vessel's side, with his head held high, his hair
streaming in the wind,--moti