to the land.

When the waters touched him he arose slowly, and stood at bay like a
stag upon a headland, when the hounds rage behind, and in front yawns
the fathomless lake.

He stood so that he still guarded the things of his trust; and his eyes
were still turned seaward, watching for the vanished sail.

Once again the men, with a loud cry to him of courage and help, strained
at their oars, and drove themselves a yard's breadth farther out. And
once again the tide, with a rush of surf and shingle, swept the boat
back, and seemed to bear her to the land as lightly as though she were a
leaf with which a wind was playing.

The waters covered the surface of the rock. It sank from sight. The foam
was white about his feet, and still he stood there--upon guard.
Everywhere there was the brilliancy of noontide sun; everywhere there
was the beaming calmness of the sea, that spread out, far and wide, in
one vast sheet of light; from the wooded line of the shore there echoed
the distant gaiety of a woman's laugh. A breeze, softly stirring through
the warm air, brought with it from the land the scent of myrtle thickets
and wild flowers. How horrible they were--the light, the calm, the
mirth, the summer fragrance!

For one moment he stood there erect; his dark form sculptured,
lion-like, against the warm yellow light of noon; about his feet the
foam.

Then, all noiselessly, a great, curled, compact wave surged over him,
breaking upon him, sweeping him away. The water spread out quickly,
smooth and gleaming like the rest. He rose, grasping in his teeth the
kreel of weed and shells.

He had waited until the last. Driven from the post he would not of
himself forsake, the love of life awoke in him; he struggled against
death.

Three times he sank, three times he rose. The sea was now strong, and
deep, and swift of pace, rushing madly in; and he was cumbered with that
weight of osier and of weed, which yet he never yielded, because it had
been her trust. With each yard that the tide bore him forward, by so
much it bore us backward. There was but the length of a spar between us,
and yet it was enough!

He rose for the fourth time, his head above the surf, the kreel uplifted
still, the sun-rays full upon his brown weary eyes, with all their
silent agony and mute appeal. Then the tide, fuller, wilder, deeper with
each wave that rolled, and washing as it went all things of the shore
from their places, flung against him, as it swe