o tell; and he was, as we
have said, swimming mechanically and as one half-asleep.

Now a hand stole forth and rested softly and caressingly upon his head.

"Love, why did you not leave me to my fate?" The voice, low and dreamy
in its sweetness, resumed: "It would have been all over by now. Yet you
threw away safety to come back and give your life for mine."

The voice, the touch, awakened him, roused him to consciousness as wide
as it ever had been.

"I would not be in such safety now if I had the opportunity," came the
reply, from the swimming head. "Our chances are desperate, yet I am
happier at this moment than I have been at any time since--that day."

"My darling, how selfish I am, resting at ease here while you have been
struggling all these hours in the water," she said. "Come up here and
rest beside me, sweetheart. The thing will carry us both. Then we can
talk nearer--closer to each other."

"No. It will hardly carry you dry and comfortable. Besides, I might
capsize it, and what then?"

For answer she began deliberately to untie the knots of the lashings
that secured her.

"What--what are you doing?"

"I am going to take your place. Then you will be able to rest."

"Mona! Mona I don't be foolish. You can't swim a stroke."

"But the lifebelt will keep me up, and I can get the same amount of
support you are having."

"No, no, I tell you. Don't loosen the knots. I might not be able to
lash them again so easily. Stay. I will try if the thing will hold us
both, if only for a little while."

By the most careful and wary manoeuvring, and alert to lower himself if
the hatch listed dangerously, he managed to worm himself upon it. Even
then, lying beside her, the additional weight submerged the impromptu
raft by nearly a foot. Still, by avoiding any violent or sudden
movement, the position was comparatively a safe one. Then, for the
first time for many hours, the first time since rising to the surface
after being drawn down in the vortex of the foundering ship, they
kissed, and there, crouching on their few feet of planking, it the only
frail support between them and the vast green depths of that awful ocean
abyss, themselves not even entirely above the surface, with all the
terrors of their indescribably appalling position vividly brought home
to them by the oozy, lifeless silence of the deserted sea, and the
fierce, darting rays of the ascending sun, these two alone together were
happ