Together they struck out toward the yacht, fresh with new courage. Now
that he could see plainly, Jim swam always a little behind Agatha,
keeping a watchful eye. She still took the water gallantly, nose and
closed mouth just topping the wave, like a spaniel. An occasional
side-stroke would bring her face level to the water, with a backward
smile for her companion. He gloried in her spirit, even while he
feared for her strength.

It was a longer pull to the yacht than they had counted upon, a heavy
tax on their powers of endurance. Jim came up to find Agatha floating
on her back and put his hand under her shoulders, steadying her easily.

"Now you can really rest," he said.

"I've looked toward the horizon so long, I thought I'd look up, way up,
for a change," she said cheerfully. "That's where the skylarks go,
when they want to sing--straight up into heaven!"

"Doesn't it make you want to sing?"

She showed no surprise at the question.

"Yes, it does, almost. But just as I thought of the skylarks, I
remembered something else; something that kept haunting me in the
darkness all night--

"'Master in song, good-by, good-by,
Down to the dim sea-line--'

I thought something or somebody was surely lost down in 'the dim
sea-line' last night."

"Who can tell? But I had a better thought than yours: Ulysses, like
us, swimming over the 'wine-dark sea'! Do you remember it? 'Then two
days and two nights on the resistless waves he drifted; many a time his
heart faced death.'"

"That's not a bit better thought than mine; but I like it. And I know
what follows, too. 'But when the fair-haired dawn brought the third
day, then the wind ceased; there came a breathless calm; and close at
hand he spied the coast, as he cast a keen glance forward, upborne on a
great wave.' That's it, isn't it?"

"I don't know, but I hope it is. 'The wine-dark sea' and the
'rosy-fingered dawn' are all I remember; though I'm glad you know what
comes next. It's a good omen. But look at the yacht; she's acting
strange!"

As the girl turned to her stroke, their attention was caught and held
by the convulsions of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. There was a grim fascination
in the sight.

It was obvious that she was sinking. While they had been resting, her
hull had sunk toward the water-line, her graceful bulk and delicate
masts showing strange against ocean and sky. Now she suddenly tipped
down at her stern; her bow was thrown up out