ng storm-crests. He told himself the gods
were good. Drowning was more merciful death than hemlock. Pelagos, the
untainted sea, was a softer grave than the Barathrum. The memory of the
fearful hour at Colonus, the vision of the face of Hermione, of all things
else that he would fain forget--all these would pass. For what came after
he cared nothing.

So for some moments he stood, clinging upon the poop, awaiting the end.
But the end came slowly. The _Solon_ was a stoutly timbered ship. Much of
her lading had been cast overboard, but more remained and gave buoyancy to
the wreckage. And as the Athenian awaited, almost impatiently, the final
disaster, something called his eye away from the heaving sky-line. Human
life was still about him. Wedged in a refuge, betwixt two capstans, the
Orientals were sitting, awaiting doom like himself. But wonder of
wonders,--he had not relaxed his hold on life too much to marvel,--the
younger Barbarian was beyond all doubt a woman. She sat in her companion's
lap, lifting her white face to his, and Glaucon knew she was of wondrous
beauty. They were talking together in some Eastern speech. Their arms were
closely twined. It was plain they were passing the last love messages
before entering the great mystery together. Of Glaucon they took no heed.
And he at first was almost angered that strangers should intrude upon this
last hour of life. But as he looked, as he saw the beauty of the woman,
the sheen of her golden hair, the interchange of love by touch and
word,--there came across his own spirit a most unlooked-for change.
Suddenly the white-capped billows seemed pitiless and chill. The warm joy
of life returned. Again memory surged back, but without its former pang.
He saw again the vision of Athens, of Colonus, of Eleusis-by-the-Sea. He
saw Hermione running through the throng to meet him the day he returned
from the Isthmia. He heard the sweet wind singing over the old olives
beside the cool Cephissus. Must these all pass forever? forever? Were
life, friends, love, the light of the sun, eternally lost, and nothing
left save the endless sleep in the unsunned caves of Oceanus? With one
surge the desire to live, to bear hard things, to conquer them, returned.
He dashed the water from his eyes. What he did next was more by instinct
than by reason. He staggered across the reeling deck, approached the
Barbarians, and seized the man by the arm.

"Would you live and not die? Up, then,--there is st