Young Kane, with a nervous movement, suddenly picked up one, then another, of the buckets and dashed them over himself. Distinctly he was coming to life. “We may never come out of this, Mr. Doane,” he said. “It's a terrible fix.” More and more, as he came slowly awake, he was dramatizing the situation and himself. “But I want to say this. I've never known a man like you. You're fine--you're big--you've helped me as no one else has. I'll never be like you--it isn't in me. I've already gone as close to hell as a man can go and perhaps still save himself--” “Can you swim?” asked Doane shortly. “I--why, yes, a little. I'm not what you'd call a strong swimmer.” Doane was wetting the princess's face and his own. There would be little time left. There was smoke now. He found a slight difficulty in breathing; evidently the fire had eaten through, forward, to the lower decks. “They won't be able to get a boat back here,” he said, and quietly pointed out the still blazing pieces of board that, after whirling into the air, were drifting by. A terrific blast of heat swept about them, indicating a change of wind. “Wait here a moment for me,” he added. “I must make one more effort to find Captain Benjamin. If that fails, we can swim ashore.” He tried working his way forward when the heat proved too great in the corridor, climbing out on the windward side of the hull. But the flames were eating steadily aft; he could not get far. Beaten back, he returned to the stem to discover that the child and Rocky Kane were gone. After a moment he saw them in the water, a few rods away, first a gleam of yellow that would be the jacket of the little princess, then their two heads close together. He lowered himself down a boat-line and swam after them. In the water this giant was as easily at home as in any form of exercise on land. Within the year he had swum at night, alone, for the sheer vital pleasure the use of his strength brought him, the nine miles from Wusung to Shanghai--slipping between junks and steamers, past the anchored war-ships and a great P. & O. liner from Bombay. The water was cool, refreshing. He stretched his full length in it, rolling his face under as one arm and then the other reached out in slow powerful strokes. Young Kane was having no easy time of it. He was clearly out of wind. And the child whimpered as she clung tightly about his neck. “I gave you up,” he sputtered weakly. Then added, with an evidence of spirit that Doane found not displeasing: “No, don't take her, please! Just steady me a little.” He was struggling in short strokes, splashing a good deal. “We ought to touch bottom now pretty quick.” Sampans and the boats of the cormorant fishers were edging into the wide circle of light about the steamer. Along the shore of the island clustered the groups of mandarins, their silk and satin robes forming a bright spot in the vivid picture.