of you tell this lady how i died and he pointed to and say i thought that she would wish it she shall be told said the officer again and saved too if i can do it hold mrs then till i am out of this i ll leave my coat to cover her a sailor obeyed and with difficulty robert free his hand very deliberately he pressed to his breast and kissed her on the forehead then how robert came ashore let her gently slide on to the bottom of the boat next he off his overcoat and slowly rolled himself over the into the sea now he said pull mrs in with some difficulty it was done and he saw her and her child sink into the place that he had left god bless you you are a brave man said i shall remember you if i live a hundred years but no one else said anything perhaps they were all too much ashamed even then i have only done my duty answered from the water how far is it to the shore about three miles shouted but keep on that plank or you will never live through the good bye good bye answered robert then the boat passed away from him and soon vanished on the misty face of the deep resting on the plank which had saved the life of mrs robert looked about him and listened now and again he heard a faint choking scream uttered by some drowning wretch and a few hundred yards away caught sight of a black object which he thought might be a boat if so he reflected that it must be full moreover he could not overtake it no his only chance was to make for the shore he was a strong and happily the water was as warm as milk there seemed to be no reason why he should not reach it supported as he was by a if the would leave him alone which they might as there was plenty for them to feed on the direction he knew well enough for now in the great silence of the sea he could hear the boom of the mighty breaking on the beach ah those i he remembered how that very afternoon and he had watched them through his field glass up against the cruel walls of rock and wondered that when the ocean was so calm they had still such power now should he live to reach them he was doomed to match himself against that power well the sooner he did so the sooner it would be over one way or the other this was in his favour the tide had turned and was flowing indeed he had little to do but to rest upon his plank which he placed beneath his breast and himself with his feet even thus he made good progress nearly a mile an hour perhaps he could have gone faster had he but he was saving his strength it was a strange journey upon that silent sea beneath those silent stars and strange thoughts came into robert s soul he wondered whether would and what how robert came ashore she would say perhaps however she was dead and he would meet her presently he wondered if he were doomed to die and whether this sacrifice of his would be allowed to for his past errors he hoped so and put up a petition to that effect for himself and for and for all the poor people who had gone before hurled from their pleasure into the halls of death so he floated on while the boom of the grew ever nearer by his wild fitful thoughts till at length what he took to be a appeared quite close to him and in the of the moment he gave up wondering it proved to be only a piece of wood but later on a real did come for he saw its back fin however this cruel creature was either or timid for when he upon the water and shouted it went away to return no more now at length robert entered upon the deep hill and valley swell which preceded the field of the suddenly he shot down a smooth slope and without effort of his own found himself borne up an opposing steep from the crest of which he had a view of white lines of foam and beyond them of a dim and rocky shore at one spot a little to his right the foam seemed thinner and the line of cliff to be broken as though here there was a for this then he his plank taking the swell which by good fortune the set of the tide enabled him to do without any great exertion the valleys grew deeper and the tops of the opposing were with foam he had entered the and the struggle for life began before him they rushed solemn and mighty viewed from some safe place even the sight of these is terrible as any who have watched them from this coast or from that of the island of can bear witness what their aspect was to this man supported by a single plank may therefore be imagined seen as he saw them in the mysterious moonlight and in utter yet his spirit rose to meet the dread emergency if he were to die he would die fighting he had grown cold and tired but now the chill and weariness left him he felt warm and strong from the crest of one of the high he thought he saw that about half a mile away from him a uttle river ran down the centre of the and for the mouth of this river he laid his course at first all went well he was borne up the seas he down the seas in a of white foam presently the rise and fall grew and 