e beauty
an hour ago had melted his soul: she was flesh to him only--her beauty
was of the earth, and flesh and the earth were passing, and it was
other things on which such moments as these were opening--things such
as shone in the transfigured face of Lilian--of Lilian whom, if this
marsh-light had not dazzled him from his way, he might now be holding
to his heart triumphant; for here disguises would have fallen and he
could have claimed his own. For, whether it were the terror of the
time, or the trancelike and spiritual look of Lilian, or whether it
were the jealous pang of seeing her in another's arms, the love on
which he had been waiting for two years and more, to which he had
sacrificed time and endeavor, which had brought him here to this
danger and this death, returned now and overwhelmed him, and the
passion of a day and night fell apart and left him in its ruins. This
woman at his feet filled him with a strange disgust: that other
woman--If this were the last hour of time, he would have risked his
chances in eternity to have held her as John did. He threw himself,
face down, on the divan, and he cursed God and called upon the
drowning wave to come.

The captain leaped down the companion-way, and caught his pistols from
a drawer. "Mr. Reyburn, we need you and the other gentlemen," he
cried. "We are throwing out our ballast. All hands must take spells at
the pumps, for the leak gains, and I shall have all I can do to keep
the men at work and the yacht afloat."

"Let her sink!" yelled Reyburn into the cushions where he lay. "Damn
her! let her sink!" And he did not stir. But John had gently released
Lilian and placed her in a chair near the sofa where her mother lay
gasping, and had sprung on deck with his father and the captain.

A horrid hour crept by--a bitter blank below, hard and fierce work
above--and then the pumps were choked. Lilian and her mother had crept
on deck, holding by whatever they could find, and surveying the
amazing scene around them. For the great black storm-cloud was flying
up and away, flying into the north-east, and through the torn vapors
that followed in its rack a waning moon arose. A tremendous sea was
running, monstrous wave breaking on monstrous wave in a mad white
frolic far as the eye could see; as one billow bounded along, curling
and feathering and swelling on its path, a score leaped round it to
powder themselves in a common cloud of spray; and every cloud of spray
as it