It did not take me long to clamber over its side and drag Nobs in
to comparative safety, and then I glanced around upon the scene
of death and desolation which surrounded us. The sea was
littered with wreckage among which floated the pitiful forms
of women and children, buoyed up by their useless lifebelts.
Some were torn and mangled; others lay rolling quietly to the
motion of the sea, their countenances composed and peaceful;
others were set in hideous lines of agony or horror. Close to
the boat's side floated the figure of a girl. Her face was
turned upward, held above the surface by her life-belt, and was
framed in a floating mass of dark and waving hair. She was
very beautiful. I had never looked upon such perfect features,
such a divine molding which was at the same time human--
intensely human. It was a face filled with character and
strength and femininity--the face of one who was created to
love and to be loved. The cheeks were flushed to the hue of
life and health and vitality, and yet she lay there upon the
bosom of the sea, dead. I felt something rise in my throat as
I looked down upon that radiant vision, and I swore that I
should live to avenge her murder.
And then I let my eyes drop once more to the face upon the water,
and what I saw nearly tumbled me backward into the sea, for the
eyes in the dead face had opened; the lips had parted; and one
hand was raised toward me in a mute appeal for succor. She lived!
She was not dead! I leaned over the boat's side and drew her quickly
in to the comparative safety which God had given me. I removed her
life-belt and my soggy coat and made a pillow for her head. I chafed
her hands and arms and feet. I worked over her for an hour, and
at last I was rewarded by a deep sigh, and again those great eyes
opened and looked into mine.
At that I was all embarrassment. I have never been a ladies' man;
at Leland-Stanford I was the butt of the class because of my
hopeless imbecility in the presence of a pretty girl; but the men
liked me, nevertheless. I was rubbing one of her hands when she
opened her eyes, and I dropped it as though it were a red-hot rivet.
Those eyes took me in slowly from head to foot; then they wandered
slowly around the horizon marked by the rising and falling gunwales
of the lifeboat. They looked at Nobs and softened, and then came
back to me filled with questioning.
"I--I--" I stammered, moving away and stumbling over the next thwart.
The vision smiled wanly.
"Aye-aye, sir!" she replied faintly, and again her lips drooped,
and her long lashes swept the firm, fair texture of her skin.
"I hope that you are feeling better," I finally managed to say.
