Busy hands were at the rope about the minister’s waist; they worked slowly, from sheer reluctance to do the deed. Bayard stamped the beach with divine impatience. His head whirled with such exaltation that he scarcely knew who touched him; he made out to perceive that Ben Trawl was one of the men who offered to tie the bow-line; he heard the old captain say, shortly:-- “I’ll do it myself!” He thought he heard little Jane Granite cry out; and that she begged him not to go, “for his people’s sake,” and that Ben Trawl roughly silenced her. Strangely, the words that he had been reading--what ages since!--in the hall in Angel Alley spun through his mind. “‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered. ‘And his wife and child. Hush. Yes!’” * * * * * So! This is the “terrible sea!” This is what drowning means; this mortal chill, this crashing weight upon the lungs, the heart, this fighting for a man’s breath,--this asphyxia--this conflict with wind and water, night and might--this being hurled out into chaos, gaining a foot, and losing three--this sight of something human yonder hurtling towards you on the billow which bears you back from it--this struggling on again, and sweeping back, and battling out! Blessing on the “gentleman’s muscle,” trained in college days to do man’s work! Thanks to the waters of old Charles River and of merry Newport for their unforgotten lessons! Thank God for that wasted liberal education,--yes, and liberal recreation,--if it teach the arm, and fire the nerve, and educate the soul to save a drunken sailor now. But save? Can human power save that sodden creature--only wit enough left in him to keep afloat and drift, dashing inward on the rocks? He swirls like a chip. But his cry is the mortal cry of flesh and blood. Bayard’s strangling lips move:-- “_Now Almighty Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth_”-- There were mad shouts upon the beach. A score of iron hands held to the line; and fifty men said to their souls: “That is a hero’s deed.” Some one flung the rest of the pailful of tar upon the fire, and it blazed up. The swimmer saw the yellow color touch the comber that broke above his head. The rope tightened like the hand of death upon his chest. Caught, perhaps? Ah, there! It has grazed the reef, and the teeth of the rock are gnawing at it; so a mastiff gnaws at the tether of his chained foe, to have the fight out unimpeded. “If it cuts through, I am gone,” thought Bayard.--“_And Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord and Saviour._”-- “Haul in! Haul in, I say! Quick! Haul ’em in for life’s sake, boys!--She tautens to the weight of two. _The parson’s got him!_” The old captain jumped up and down on the pebbles like a boy. Wet and glittering, through hands of steel, the line sped in. “Does she hold? Is she cut? Haul in, haul in, haul in!” The men broke into one of their sudden, natural choruses, moving rhythmically to the measure of their song:--