"Keep the helm over--hard!" he said. "There is a squall coming; it will be on us in a moment. We must have this sail down. Don't leave the tiller!" And without losing a second he began to tug at the mainsail halyards. But, the blocks running stiffly, or the ropes being swollen, before the sail was more than half-way down the squall struck them, with a howling blast that seemed to issue from some stupendous bellows, and rain that fell like steel rods. Over, over went the little boat, staggering under the onset, while Fortuné fought desperately both to get the sail completely down and to prevent it, as it came, from flapping into the angry water and pulling them under. It came back to him, like a demon's laughter, as he wrestled with it one-handed, how a few short hours ago he had said that two arms were unnecessary. What a lie! Yet one terrible question only occupied his mind as he got the sail under control, and as the struggling boat, preserved from overturning only by the way which she had on her, began to right herself--Raymonde! Had she been swept out--for they had been at a fearful angle? No, she was still at her post, clinging to the tiller, gasping, and white as death. But she had not lost her head, and that had saved them. She knew as well as her lover that to keep the helm down was their one chance of avoiding being swamped by the great green seas that were all setting in fury towards the island, and bearing them, half full of water as they were, at each plunge a little nearer to the rocks. Without a word, except her name, uttered in something between a sob and a curse, La Vireville threw himself too on the groaning tiller, and for a few minutes they stood there side by side, staggering with the oscillations of the maddened craft, with the strength of both their bodies bent to one end--to keep that bar of wood, and with it the rudder, as it should be, against the malignant will of the storm. This was their true betrothal, handfasted by the tempest, and, as they would never have known it on the golden and enchanted island, among the gorse, they knew without the interchange of a word, in the howling wind, the pelting, stinging rain, with the water they had shipped swirling about their feet, that they were one indeed. * * * * *