e
saw a child near him put her little hand into that of a
soldierly-looking man, and heard her whisper--"You won't leave me,
papa?" And the answer--"Never, my darling. Don't fear." Just behind him
a man whispered in a woman's ear--"Forgive me, Mary." Percival wondered
vaguely what that woman had to forgive. He never saw any of the speakers
again.

For a strange thing happened. Strange, at least, it seemed to him; but
he understood it afterwards. The ship was really resting upon a ledge of
the rock on which she had struck: there was little to be seen in the
darkness except a white line of breakers and a mass of something
beyond--was it land? The ship gave a sudden outward lurch. There went up
a cry to Heaven--a last cry from most of the souls on board the
ill-fated _Arizona_--and then came the end. The vessel fell over the
edge of the rocky shelf into deep water and went down like a stone.

Percival was a good swimmer, and struck out vigorously, without any
expectation, however, of being able to maintain himself in the water for
more than a very short time. Escape from the tangled rigging and
floating pieces of the wreck was a difficult matter; but the water was
very calm inside the reef, and not at all cold. He tried to save a woman
as she was swept past him: for a time he supported a child, but the
effort to save it was useless. The little creature's head struck against
some portion of the wreck and it was killed on the spot. Percival let
the little dead face sink away from him into the water and swam further
from the point where it went down.

"There must be others saved as well as myself," he thought, when he was
able to think at all coherently. "At least, let me keep myself up till
daylight. One may see some way of escape then." It had been three
o'clock when the ship struck. He had remembered to look at his watch
when he was first aroused. Would his strength last out till morning?

If his safety had depended entirely on his swimming powers he would have
been, indeed in evil case. But long before the first faint streak of
dawn appeared, it seemed to him that he was coming in contact with
something solid--that there was something hard and firm beneath him
which he could touch from time to time. The truth came to him at last.
The tide was going down; and as it went down, it would leave a portion
of the reef within his reach. There might be some unwashed point to
which he could climb as soon as daylight came. At an