whirled away in the vortex of such a storm.

At noon or later, after the ruin of Last Island, a gentleman of a name
renowned in South-western story found himself clinging to a bush in
the wild waters, lashed by the long whips of branches, half dead
with fatigue and fear. For a time the hurly-burly blinded and hid
everything, and the long roll rocked and tore at him in desperate
endeavor to wrench loose his bleeding fingers. The impulse of the wind
and storm at such a time is as of a solid body, and there is a look
of solidity in the very appearance of the magnificent force. But as
it abated he thought he heard a faint cry, and looking around he saw a
poor girl in the ribbons of her night-dress clinging to a branch, and
slipping from her feeble hold. Tired as he was, and wild and dangerous
as the attempt might be, he did not dare to leave her to perish.
Choosing his time in a lull, he struck out to the bush, and reached it
just as her ebbing strength gave way. He took her in his sturdy arms,
and, clinging with tooth and nail, stayed them both to their strange
anchorage. Faint, half conscious, disrobed as she was, in the sweet,
delicate features, the curve of the lip, and the raven tresses clothed
in seaweed, he recognized the Creole belle of last night's hop. He
cheered and encouraged her, pointing out that the storm was abating,
had abated. It could not be long until search-boats came, and while he
had strength to live she should share it. It proved true. Generous and
hardy fishers and ships had come at once to the scene of disaster, and
were busy picking up the few spared by wind and wave. They found the
two clinging together and to that slight bush, and took them off,
wrapping them in ready, rough fishermen's coats. The reader can see
the end of that story. A meeting so appointed had its predestined
end in a love-match. So we leave it and them: the rest of their lives
belongs to them, not to us.