and I aver it again, I was unafraid. The death which
Wolf Larsen and even Thomas Mugridge had made me fear, I no longer
feared. The coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed to have
transformed me. After all, I thought, it is better and finer to love
than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worth while that one
is not loath to die for it. I forget my own life in the love of another
life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never wanted so much to live as
right now when I place the least value upon my own life. I never had so
much reason for living, was my concluding thought; and after that, until
I dozed, I contented myself with trying to pierce the darkness to where I
knew Maud crouched low in the stern-sheets, watchful of the foaming sea
and ready to call me on an instant's notice.

CHAPTER XXVIII

There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering in
the small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, here and
there, willy-nilly, across the ocean. The high wind blew from the
north-west for twenty-four hours, when it fell calm, and in the night
sprang up from the south-west. This was dead in our teeth, but I took in
the sea-anchor and set sail, hauling a course on the wind which took us
in a south-south-easterly direction. It was an even choice between this
and the west-north-westerly course which the wind permitted; but the warm
airs of the south fanned my desire for a warmer sea and swayed my
decision.

In three hours--it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark as I had
ever seen it on the sea--the wind, still blowing out of the south-west,
rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set the sea-anchor.

Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the boat
pitching, almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent danger of
being swamped by the whitecaps. As it was, spray and spume came aboard
in such quantities that I bailed without cessation. The blankets were
soaking. Everything was wet except Maud, and she, in oilskins, rubber
boots, and sou'wester, was dry, all but her face and hands and a stray
wisp of hair. She relieved me at the bailing-hole from time to time, and
bravely she threw out the water and faced the storm. All things are
relative. It was no more than a stiff blow, but to us, fighting for life
in our frail craft, it was indeed a storm.

Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas roaring
b