of her heroic calm; not much: her body trembled a little,
but not her eye.

The ship was now so low in the water that by using an oar as a lever he
could slide her into the waves.

"Come," said he, "while yet there is time."

She turned her great Roman eyes, wet now, upon him. "Poor youth!--God
forgive me!--My child!" And he launched her on the surge, and with his
oar kept her from being battered against the ship.

A heavy hand fell on him; a deep sonorous voice sounded in his ear:
"'Tis well. Now come with me."

It was the gigantic friar.

Gerard turned, and the friar took two strides, and laid hold of the
broken mast. Gerard did the same, obeying him instinctively. Between
them, after a prodigious effort, they hoisted up the remainder of the
mast, and carried it off. "Fling it in," said the friar, "and follow
it." They flung it in; but one of the bewildered passengers had run
after them, and jumped first and got on one end. Gerard seized the
other, the friar the middle.

It was a terrible situation. The mast rose and plunged with each wave
like a kicking horse, and the spray flogged their faces mercilessly, and
blinded them: to help knock them off.

Presently was heard a long grating noise ahead. The ship had struck, and
soon after, she being stationary now, they were hurled against her with
tremendous force. Their companion's head struck against the upper part
of the broken rudder with a horrible crack, and was smashed like a
cocoa-nut by a sledge-hammer. He sunk directly, leaving no trace but
a red stain on the water, and a white clot on the jagged rudder, and a
death cry ringing in their ears, as they drifted clear under the lee of
the black hull. The friar uttered a short Latin prayer for the safety of
his soul, and took his place composedly. They rolled along; one moment
they saw nothing, and seemed down in a mere basin of watery hills: the
next they caught glimpses of the shore speckled bright with people,
who kept throwing up their arms with wild Italian gestures to encourage
them, and the black boat driving bottom upwards, and between it and
them the woman rising and falling like themselves. She had come across a
paddle, and was holding her child tight with her left arm, and paddling
gallantly with her right.

When they had tumbled along thus a long time, suddenly the friar said
quietly--

"I touched the ground."

"Impossible, father," said Gerard; "we are more than a hundred yards
from shore.