through it like a swan. Through the foam and turmoil I saw the black
thing on the wave hurrying right at me. I put out my right arm to ward
it from me, and my hand closed on another arm, the wrist of which my
fingers gripped like a vice. I am a very strong man, and had something
to hold to, but my arm was nearly torn from its socket by the strain and
weight of the floating body. Had the rush lasted another two seconds I
might either have let go or gone with it. But it passed, leaving us up
to our knees in water.

"Bail out! bail out!" shouted Job, suiting the action to the word.

But I could not bail just then, for as the moon went out and left us in
total darkness, one faint, flying ray of light lit upon the face of the
man I had gripped, who was now half lying, half floating in the bottom
of the boat.

It was Leo. Leo brought back by the wave--back, dead or alive, from the
very jaws of Death.

"Bail out! bail out!" yelled Job, "or we shall founder."

I seized a large tin bowl with a handle to it, which was fixed under one
of the seats, and the three of us bailed away for dear life. The furious
tempest drove over and round us, flinging the boat this way and that,
the wind and the storm wreaths and the sheets of stinging spray blinded
and bewildered us, but through it all we worked like demons with the
wild exhilaration of despair, for even despair can exhilarate. One
minute! three minutes! six minutes! The boat began to lighten, and no
fresh wave swamped us. Five minutes more, and she was fairly clear.
Then, suddenly, above the awful shriekings of the hurricane came a