, 1910-01-06

waves. Fortunately she did not cap
size instantly and the next breaker
I'LL d her. She lay, her gunwales hush
with the water. Her motion was I'll
violent. but less jerky. She was swept
ever onward by the vast undulatfons.
The indomitable m clinging to
the thwart managed to keep her head
out of the water. She realized that
that was the end and yet while she
had a remainder of strength, while
she could draw a Pickering breath,
she would not give up. The boat, be-
ing water-logged, did not pitch SO
much as before and she was able to
maintain her hold. although
wave that broke over her drenched
her again and again.
She wondered why the boat did not
sink and then she realized that the
empty gasoline tanks which she had
closed and locked, prevented the final
catastrophe; that the boat was in a
certain sense q life boat; that Y would
float SO long as the water pressure
did not succeed in opening the tanks.
Therefore, shc va Tor the moment
SAFE. Inc O4-, l-LultuiutC ohhB'i
would be the capsizing Of the boat
which would throw her out. Since
the launch was already full of water
the woman did not think this was
likely to happen.
She held on, her vitality gradually
growing weaker. hoping for the morn
ing and an abatement of the storm.
She had no Idea of time, OF course.
She could not tell what the hour was.
It was still dark. however, when a
strange sound smote her ear. She
heard 1t above the wild scream OF the
wind and the awful beat of the waves.
It was a crashing sound, a battering
sound, a fearful, ~protentous sound.
The boat ran forward more swiftly
now. She wondered the reason. TAX
Ing advantage of a brief lull, she
abandoned her grip on the thwart and
rose to her knees. Immediately in
front of her she saw a white wall dis
closed to her by the lightning flashes.
She did not know what 1t was. The
roaring sound came from thence. She
was being borne rapidly toward 1t.
She was nearing It with astonishing
swiftness. The boat was moving more
quickly now than at any time since
she had been in it. At last 1t broke
upon her consciousness that the white
wall was a mass of foam; that h sea
was crashing against some hidden
shore and that great breakers were
there.
The land that she had longed for
{rlnal Low athuyprt har pn,rrn Tn
another moment she would be in that
mass of boiling foam. Well, she had
fought a good fight. The end was at
hand. With some instinct of the
heroic, death would not find her lying
down. Desperately she struggled to
her feet and stood, balancing herself
to the wild onward rush of the boat,
The wall of foam was close at hand.
For one second she threw out her
arms and the next moment, with a
crash which she could feel II not
hear. the boat beneath her feet was
lifted up and hurled on something
fearfully solid. She was thrown
through the air like a bolt from a cat
apult. A wave struck her in the back
and beat her almost into i~nsensibility.
She vas tossed and driven half un-
conscious over the space OF shallow
water and rolling sea upon a sandy
shore. Blindly she crawled on. The
waves seemed suddenly to have lost
their power. She did not know that
she had been thrown past a barrier
reef and carried over a lagoon and
dropped on a sea beach; that only the
most unusual and gigantic waves could
reach her, out she knew that they had
little power to harm her. And so she
crept desperately and %doggedly on I'M
til she fell forward in the warm sand
and lasped into absolute and total I'M
consciousness.