lly solid. He was
dashed forward, still battling with the raging turmoil of water, and a
second time he felt the same firm yet smooth surface. His dormant
faculties awoke. It was sand. With frenzied desperation, buoyed now by
the inspiring hope of safety, he fought his way onwards like a maniac.

Often he fell, three times did the backwash try to drag him to the
swirling death behind, but he staggered blindly on, on, until even the
tearing gale ceased to be laden with the suffocating foam, and his
faltering feet sank in deep soft white sand.

[Illustration: WITH FRENZIED DESPERATION, BUOYED NOW BY THE INSPIRING
HOPE OF SAFETY, HE FOUGHT HIS WAY ONWARD LIKE A MANIAC.]

Then he fell, not to rise again. With a last weak flicker of exhausted
strength he drew the girl closely to him, and the two lay, clasped
tightly together, heedless now of all things.

How long the man remained prostrate he could only guess subsequently.
The _Sirdar_ struck soon after daybreak and the sailor awoke to a
hazy consciousness of his surroundings to find a shaft of sunshine
flickering through the clouds banked up in the east. The gale was
already passing away. Although the wind still whistled with shrill
violence it was more blustering than threatening. The sea, too, though
running very high, had retreated many yards from the spot where he had
finally dropped, and its surface was no longer scourged with venomous
spray.

Slowly and painfully he raised himself to a sitting posture, for he was
bruised and stiff. With his first movement he became violently ill. He
had swallowed much salt water, and it was not until the spasm of
sickness had passed that he thought of the girl.

She had slipped from his breast as he rose, and was lying, face
downwards, in the sand. The memory of much that had happened surged
into his brain with horrifying suddenness.

"She cannot be dead," he hoarsely murmured, feebly trying to lift her.
"Surely Providence would not desert her after such an escape. What a
weak beggar I must be to give in at the last moment. I am sure she was
living when we got ashore. What on earth can I do to revive her?"

Forgetful of his own aching limbs in this newborn anxiety, he sank on
one knee and gently pillowed Iris's head and shoulders on the other.
Her eyes were closed, her lips and teeth firmly set--a fact to which
she undoubtedly owed her life, else she would have been suffocated--and
the pallor of her skin seemed to be that ter