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she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the most
extraordinary capers in her efforts to put about. Her own lights, and
those of the beacons at the river mouth, showed him all her stern
grating and bright deck fittings as she heeled over, hanging to the side
of one of those ridiculous ocean rollers out of bounds; and he thought it
no wonder that he--even he--had been tossed off under the
circumstances. The crew, who were not sitting on a skimming dish, as
it were, had their work cut out to hold on. As he looked, he measured
his drift with serious disquietude, although the preposterous idea of
anybody being drowned had not as yet occurred to him. Drowned
HERE! A good joke, indeed! Why, they were within hail of Sandridge,
and half-a-dozen ships--or they would have been, but for the noise of
wind and water, which smothered lesser sounds; and the lights of
Williamstown--amongst them that of the little home awaiting him--
studded the shore on the other hand, near and clear, like the eyes of a
host of watching friends. And in Hobson's Bay, which could hardly
cover the body of a sunk yacht; and right up by the river, which had to
be dredged all the time to keep it open!
But where was Lily? It scared him to find himself out of arm's reach of
her, forced back by the swell, and not to see her immediately when he
was able to look. He saw the launch--which of course was entirely
occupied in her rescue--and saw two white buoys floating, and saw a
line thrown, but nothing else, except the wild water that buffeted him,
and the moonless night overhead. And he remembered that the river
channel--indeed, Hobson's Bay in any part--was just as dangerous as
mid-Atlantic to one who could not swim. The thought clutched him like
a hand at his throat.

"Got her?" he yelled, in a fury of terror. "Got her? See her?"
He strained to make himself heard by the men on the launch in a way to
burst his heart. They shouted something that he could not understand,
and a line came whizzing past him. He caught it as it dropped, and soon
lessened the distance between them. Then he perceived a long
boat-hook stretching out into the darkness; it went up and down with
the toss of the boat like the fishing-rod of an impatient school-boy, and
a few yards beyond its reach, where it touched water, there was a dim
smudge. He knew it for the full cape of Lily's macintosh, outspread
upon the waves. They alternately rumpled and smoothed it, flapping it
into all shapes as they tossed and toyed with it; but, by the mercy of
Heaven, it had held her up. In the middle of the mass he could see her
dear little head hanging forward and downward, just under the surface,
out of which a larger or smaller speck of her white fascinator rose and
gleamed as each roll swung her up into the light of the boat's lamp
turned upon the spot. This told him that she was already helpless and
unconscious, although ten seconds had not elapsed since she went over.
God send that she had not struck anything--that her heart was not weak
--that she was not subject to any of the mysterious consequences of
shock peculiar to the more than ordinarily complex women! At any rate,
she had not had time to drown. He had seen a man recovered after
being under for forty minutes, and in less than one they would be
taking her full speed to Williamstown, signalling for the doctor as they
went. What would the fellows ashore make of the three whistles-- three
times there before they got across? They would know the launch that
blew them, and her present errand, and think, perhaps, that the crew
were on the spree. But no, they would have more sense than that; they
would look at the wild night, and conclude that something had
happened. So would the doctor, who would hear the summons from his
bed. What would they all say to him, Guthrie Carey, with his good
seaman's record behind him, when he brought his wife home in such a
state of dilapidation? However, all's well that ends well. Let him only
have her safely there, and he would not mind what anybody said; and
he'd take precious good care not to run any risks with her again.
Water-logged as he was, and cramped in his overcoat, he made a

violent bound towards the floating cape, lunged twice, caught it at the
second try, and pulled it eagerly--alas! too eagerly. He felt the tug of
Lily's weight only just long enough to be sure that she was there,