achievement--beneath which I crawled.

The rain drumming upon this shelter made conversation an effort, but in
half an hour the storm had all but blown itself to pieces and then I let
fly a string of questions--the first being of our small boat.

He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had made safe just in
time. As they scrambled aboard the hurricane struck. The mate, knowing
with laudatory foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction,
had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable. Even that had not saved
the mainsail from being torn away.

As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much concern. I knew
her to be a staunch craft, handled by able seamen, and felt that she
would come out on top even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a
simplicity that deeply touched me, he added that as she was about to be
blown off for an absence of, perhaps, some days, and he realized that I
would be in need of help, he dived overboard.

"But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething water, "you took
your life in your hands!"

"Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but whether he meant all over
the world, or all over as might apply to his personal self, was left in
doubt.

Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living who could have
breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for such a distance. I could judge
something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath--and
since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little
faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the
risk he took--and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his
stupendous strength I can not write, but only marvel.

Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly tired,
healthily drowsy. There were more questions to be asked, plans to be
discussed, but my gods descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun
was shining in all its glory.

CHAPTER XIII

ON TO DEATH RIVER!

Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of
awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is
ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous
songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a
storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects
the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one
hears a water-drip--aftermath of rains; a gentle, almos