him.

He saw no signs of help. His heart began to turn as cold as his drenched
body. A horrible fear crossed him.

But presently he saw the weather-boat filled, and fall into the water;
and then a wave rolled between him and the ship, and he only saw her
topmast.

The next time he rose on a mighty wave he saw the boats together astern
of the vessel, but not coming his way; and the gloom was thickening, the
ship becoming indistinct, and all was doubt and horror.

A life of agony passed in a few minutes.

He rose and fell like a cork on the buoyant waves--rose and fell, and
saw nothing but the ship's lights, now terribly distant.

But at last, as he rose and fell, he caught a few fitful glimpses of a
smaller light rising and falling like himself. "A boat!" he cried, and
raising himself as high as he could, shouted, cried, implored for help.
He stretched his hands across the water. "This way! this way!"

The light kept moving, but it came no nearer. They had greatly
underrated the drift. The other boat had no light.

Minutes passed of suspense, hope, doubt, dismay, terror. Those minutes
seemed hours.

In the agony of suspense the quaking heart sent beads of sweat to the
brow, though the body was immersed.

And the gloom deepened, and the cold waves flung him up to heaven with
their giant arms, and then down again to hell: and still that light, his
only hope, was several hundred yards from him.

Only for a moment at a time could his eyeballs, straining with agony,
catch this will-o'-the-wisp, the boat's light. It groped the sea up and
down, but came no near.

When what seemed days of agony had passed, suddenly a rocket rose in the
horizon--so it seemed to him.

The lost man gave a shriek of joy; so prone are we to interpret things
hopefully.

Misery! The next time he saw that little light, that solitary spark of
hope, it was not quite so near as before. A mortal sickness fell on his
heart. The ship had recalled the boats by rocket.

He shrieked, he cried, he screamed, he raved. "Oh, Rosa! Rosa! for her
sake, men, men, do not leave me. I am here! here!"

In vain. The miserable man saw the boat's little light retire, recede,
and melt into the ship's larger light, and that light glided away.

Then, a cold, deadly stupor fell on him. Then, death's icy claw seized
his heart, and seemed to run from it to every part of him. He was a dead
man. Only a question of time. Nothing to gain by floating.

But the de