oupees_ for them--and the children would cry--and it was all very
droll.

He pulled on, mechanically, doggedly. His face was wrinkled where the
muscles twisted in pain, drops that were not rain nor spray stood out
in great beads upon his forehead, his back seemed breaking, his arms
useless things that writhed with the strain upon them.

Wild thoughts came to him. Why should he struggle there against the
pitiless strength that was greater than his, until he could no longer
even meet the waves with the bow of his boat, until they would turn him
over and over and afterwards roll him upon the shore, where Papa
Fregeau, perhaps, would find him! See, it would be a very easy matter
to stop while he had yet a little strength left to guide the boat--and
run with the waves--and it would rest him--and by the time he got to
the shore he would be quite strong enough again to fight his way
through the breakers. His lips moved, teeth working over them, biting
into them, tinging them with blood. It came out of this hell and these
storm devils around him, that thought! Marie-Louise was waiting, was
she not, upon the Perigeau--and when the tide was high and the sea was
calm one could row over the Perigeau, and sometimes see a _dragonet_,
with the beautiful blue and yellow marking on its white scaleless body,
looking for food in the rock crevices out of its curious eyes that were
in the top of its head!

A flicker of light! Yes--yes--the lantern! He was abreast of it
again. The good God had not deserted him! He was still strong--there
was iron in his arms again--the torture of pulling was gone. He could
feel the boat lift now to the stroke.

He pulled, taking his breath in catchy sobs. The boat swept downward
into a great trough, rose again, trembling, balancing on the next
crest--and the light had disappeared. A cry gurgled from Jean's
throat, impotent, full of anguish. It was an hallucination, a torture
of the devil! No! There it was once more--he caught it on the next
rise, and each succeeding one now. And he, not it now, was making
headway seaward. He was across the tide-race, it was the Madonna who
had prayed for him! and in another little while, soon now, just as soon
as the lantern showed a little further astern, he would get the lee of
the Perigeau itself--it would be broken water, but it would be like a
child's effort then. And that!--what was that!

"Jean!"--it came ringing down with the wind, a brave, st