s from the pressure of the water, and with one arm,
torn and bleeding from the line, in a twisted position: it was laid
bare, at one place even to the bone.

Father walked with a pale face and supported him while they carried him
up and put him to bed.

When he recovered consciousness, he began spitting blood, and had a
difficulty in speaking; but father, who examined his chest, said
joyfully that there was no danger.

By this exploit of saving the yacht Jens became famed as a hero far and
wide; from that day forward, he was one of my father's trusted men, and
in the following summer he and French Martina were married.

CHAPTER XI

_CONCLUSION_

I can now calmly write down the little, for me so much, that remains to
be told--for many years it would have been impossible.

The storm lasted from Saturday midday until Sunday night, when towards
morning the wind gradually subsided into complete stillness, although
the sea continued restless.

The same day, Monday, at midday, there landed at the parsonage
landing-place, not the minister's white house-boat, that was expected
home, but an ordinary tarred, ten-oared boat, with a number of people in
it.

From it four of the men slowly bore a burden between them up to the
house, while a big man and a little woman went, bowed down, hand in
hand, after them. It was the minister and his wife.

I understood at once what had happened, and my heart cried with despair.

The dreadful message, which came to us directly after, told me nothing
new--it only confirmed my belief that it was the minister's daughter
Susanna they had borne up.

The parsonage boat had been only a little more than three-quarters of a
mile away from home that Saturday morning when the storm came on so
suddenly. A "windfall" had come down with terrible force from the
mountains into the Sound, and had capsized the boat, which was not far
from land.

The minister had quickly helped his wife up on to the boat, and the men
held on round the edge, while they drifted before the wind the short
distance in to the shore. But he searched in vain for his child, to find
her and save her.

With the sea seething round the boat, the strong man three times in his
despair let go his hold in order to swim to the place where he imagined
he saw her in the water. He was going to try again, but his wife, in
great distress, begged his men to hinder him, and they did so.

They said afterwards that they saw drops o