He screamed out, doubled, seized her, and took her down with him. And he nearly did drown her, so well did he play-act his own drowning. But never did she lose her head nor succumb to the fear of death so dreadfully imminent. Always, when she got her head out, she strove to support him while she panted and gasped encouragement in terms of: “Relax . . . Relax . . . Slack . . . Slack out . . . At any time . . . now . . . you’ll pass . . . the worst . . . No matter how much it hurts . . . it will pass . . . You’re easier now . . . aren’t you?” And then he would put her down again, going from bad to worse—in his ill-treatment of her; making her swallow pints of salt water, secure in the knowledge that it would not definitely hurt her. Sometimes they came up for brief emergences, for gasping seconds in the sunshine on the surface, and then were under again, dragged under by him, rolled and tumbled under by the curling breakers. Although she struggled and tore herself from his grips, in the times he permitted her freedom she did not attempt to swim away from him, but, with fading strength and reeling consciousness, invariably came to him to try to save him. When it was enough, in his judgment, and more than enough, he grew quieter, left her released, and stretched out on the surface. “A-a-h,” he sighed long, almost luxuriously, and spoke with pauses for breath. “It is passing. It seems like heaven. My dear, I’m water-logged, yet the mere absence of that frightful agony makes my present state sheerest bliss.” She tried to gasp a reply, but could not. “I’m all right,” he assured her. “Let us float and rest up. Stretch out, yourself, and get your wind back.” And for half an hour, side by side, on their backs, they floated in the fairly placid Kanaka Surf. Ida Barton was the first to announce recovery by speaking first. “And how do you feel now, man of mine?” she asked. “I feel as if I’d been run over by a steam-roller,” he replied. “And you, poor darling?” “I feel I’m the happiest woman in the world. I’m so happy I could almost cry, but I’m too happy even for that. You had me horribly frightened for a time. I thought I was to lose you.” Lee Barton’s heart pounded up. Never a mention of losing herself. This, then, was love, and all real love, proved true—the great love that forgot self in the loved one. “And I’m the proudest man in the world,” he told her; “because my wife is the bravest woman in the world.” “Brave!” she repudiated. “I love you. I never knew how much, how really much, I loved you as when I was losing you. And now let’s work for shore. I want you all alone with me, your arms around me, while I tell you all you are to me and shall always be to me.” In another half-hour, swimming strong and steadily, they landed on the beach and walked up the hard wet sand among the sand-loafers and sun-baskers. “What were the two of you doing out there?” queried one of the Outrigger captains. “Cutting up?”