The old man obeyed him, and began to knot the fragments together, while the youth pressed his foot upon each knot, drew it firmly, and proceeded to the next. A cable of some length was thus produced, which he tied around his waist, while he flung the other end to the minister, who, fired with sudden energy, followed the directions given him in stern silence. "Now come with me into the surf and hold firm, or you will have another poor wretch to pray over," cried the young man. "Now, while that wave goes out--ah! she strikes!--she falls apart!--there! there!--that red heap in the foam!" The youth plunged headlong into the waves. The old man stood waist deep, with the end of the cable grasped firmly and wrapped around his right arm. The winds dashed in his face and swept around his feet, striving to uproot them, but he stood firm; the waters might as well have beat against a pillar of iron. He felt the cable tighten with a jerk; for an instant he saw the youth upon the crest of a wave, then all was roar and darkness. A wave had rolled in and out again, straining at the cable till it almost broke the old man's arm. Another rush of water. The cable slackened, it was broken, or--wild hope--the waters which came roaring in might bring the youth in their bosom. The old man turned and fled up the shore, shouting a thanksgiving as he felt the cable tighten in his hold. Like a monster that bears a child on its bosom, the wave rushed up, and surged back again, leaving two human beings struggling in its spent foam. A mass of dull crimson broke up through the white froth, and tresses of long hair floated on the foam wreaths. The old man rushed back, seized upon these two lifeless creatures, and dragged them to dry land. His iron energies were all aroused now; other human beings were yet in the waves. He left the strange female and the youth, helpless as they were, and went back in search of other lives. It took time, for the poor boatmen were struggling hard for life, and the storm fought them inch by inch, sweeping one man into eternity, and washing over the others every moment. While feelings of humanity transformed this dreamer into an activity that would have astonished any one that knew him, the two persons he had already saved lay senseless on the bank of ferns where he had cast them down. It was not yet dark, and a black shadow from the hills rolled over them, making their white faces ghastly as death. The woman was the first to move; she struggled a little, clasping and unclasping her hands with quick spasms of pain. Then the violet tinge grew to a faint flush on her eyelids, and they quivered open, allowing two large gray eyes yet filled with dull affright to look upward with vague wonder upon the sky. Directly other senses awoke from their lethargy. The boom of the ocean struck a shudder through all her frame; she began to tremble beneath the cold sweep of the winds, and felt vaguely about with her hand for something to fold about her.