the combustible matter
within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she
lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there
was a spark of life yet vital in her bosom.

Harrington knelt beside Mabel. He chafed her hands between his own, and
wrung the water from her long hair. But it all seemed in vain. No color
came to those blue fingers. The purple tinge still lay like the shadow
of violets under the closed eyes,--no motion of the chest--no stir of
the limbs. At last drops of water came oozing through the white lips,
and a scarcely perceptible shiver ran through the limbs.

"It is life!" said Harrington, lifting his radiant face to the boatman.

"Are you sartin it ain't the wind a stirring her gown?" asked Ben,
trembling between anxiety and delight.

"No, no--her chest heaves,--she struggles. It is life, precious, holy
life; God has given her back to us, Ben!"

"I don't know--I ain't quite sartin yet, if she'd only open her eyes, or
lift her hand!" exclaimed the poor fellow.

Here a faint groan broke from the object of his solicitude, and she
began to struggle upon the ground.

"Go," said Harrington, "search out the light we saw--she will need rest
and shelter more than anything now."

"I will, in course I will--only let me be sartin she's coming to."

The good fellow knelt down by Mabel as he spoke, and lifting her hand in
his, laid it to his rough cheek.

"It's alive--it moves like a drenched bird put back in its nest--I'll go
now, Mister James, but d'ye see I felt like thanking the great Admiral
up aloft there, and didn't want no mistake about it."

"Yes, we may well thank God; she lives," said Harrington, looking down
upon Mabel with tears in his eyes.

"Then I _do_ thank God, soul and body, I thanks him," answered Ben,
throwing his clasped hands aloft, "and if I was commander of the
stoutest man-of-war as ever floated, I'd thank him all the same."

With these words Ben disappeared in the undergrowth and proceeded in
search of help.

Admonished by the throes and struggles which proclaimed a painful return
of life, Harrington lifted Mabel to a sitting posture and supported her
there. His heart was wrung by every spasm of anguish that swept over
her; yet at each one, he sent up a brief thanksgiving, for it was a
proof of returning consciousness. Still she looked very deathly, and the
sighs that broke through her pale lips seemed like an echo of some
struggling