Peter sank, and wept for
Lazarus dead when the apostles' eyes were dry, oh, save poor Gerard--for
dear Margaret's sake!"

At this moment the sailors were seen preparing to desert the sinking
ship in the little boat, which even at that epoch every ship carried;
then there was a rush of egotists; and thirty souls crowded into it.
Remained behind three who were bewildered, and two who were paralyzed,
with terror. The paralyzed sat like heaps of wet rags, the bewildered
ones ran to and fro, and saw the thirty egotists put off, but made no
attempt to join them: only kept running to and fro, and wringing their
hands. Besides these there was one on his knees, praying over the wooden
statue of the Virgin Mary, as large as life, which the sailors had
reverently detached from the mast. It washed about the deck, as the
water came slushing in from the sea, and pouring out at the scuppers;
and this poor soul kept following it on his knees, with his hands
clasped at it, and the water playing with it. And there was the Jew
palsied, but not by fear. He was no longer capable of so petty a
passion. He sat cross-legged, bemoaning his bag, and whenever the
spray lashed him, shook his fist at where it came from, and cursed the
Nazarenes, and their gods, and their devils, and their ships, and their
waters, to all eternity.

And the gigantic Dominican, having shriven the whole ship, stood calmly
communing with his own spirit. And the Roman woman sat pale and patient,
only drawing her child closer to her bosom as death came nearer.

Gerard saw this, and it awakened his manhood.

"See! see!" he said, "they have ta'en the boat and left the poor woman
and her child to perish."

His heart soon set his wit working.

"Wife, I'll save thee yet, please God." And he ran to find a cask or a
plank to float her. There was none.

Then his eye fell on the wooden image of the Virgin. He caught it up in
his arms, and heedless of a wail that issued from its worshipper like a
child robbed of its toy, ran aft with it. "Come, wife," he cried.
"I'll lash thee and the child to this. 'Tis sore worm eaten, but 'twill
serve."

She turned her great dark eye on him and said a single word:

"Thyself?!"

But with wonderful magnanimity and tenderness.

"I am a man, and have no child to take care of."

"Ah!" said she, and his words seemed to animate her face with a desire
to live. He lashed the image to her side. Then with the hope of life she
lost something