I had been cruelly wounded.

To think that I had been unable to afford protection to the helpless
one who craved it of me, and who relied on me! It was that which made my
heart sick and sent the blood buzzing through my ears.

That night a great wind rose up from the sea, and the wild waves
shrieked upon the shore as though they would tear it back with them into
the ocean. The turmoil and the uproar were congenial to my vexed spirit.
All night I wandered up and down, wet with spray and rain, watching the
gleam of the white breakers and listening to the outcry of the storm.
My heart was bitter against the Russian. I joined my feeble pipe to the
screaming of the gale. "If he would but come back again!" I cried with
clenched hands; "if he would but come back!"

He came back. When the grey light of morning spread over the eastern
sky, and lit up the great waste of yellow, tossing waters, with the
brown clouds drifting swiftly over them, then I saw him once again. A
few hundred yards off along the sand there lay a long dark object,
cast up by the fury of the waves. It was my boat, much shattered and
splintered. A little further on, a vague, shapeless something was
washing to and fro in the shallow water, all mixed with shingle and with
seaweed. I saw at a glance that it was the Russian, face downwards and
dead. I rushed into the water and dragged him up on to the beach. It was
only when I turned him over that I discovered that she was beneath him,
his dead arms encircling her, his mangled body still intervening between
her and the fury of the storm. It seemed that the fierce German Sea
might beat the life from him, but with all its strength it was unable to
tear this one-idea'd man from the woman whom he loved. There were signs
which led me to believe that during that awful night the woman's fickle
mind had come at last to learn the worth of the true heart and strong
arm which struggled for her and guarded her so tenderly. Why else should
her little head be nestling so lovingly on his broad breast, while her
yellow hair entwined itself with his flowing beard? Why too should there
be that bright smile of ineffable happiness and triumph, which death
itself had not had power to banish from his dusky face? I fancy that
death had been brighter to him than life had ever been.

Madge and I buried them there on the shores of the desolate northern
sea. They lie in one grave deep down beneath the yellow sand. Strange
things may ha