Drifting along, or rather flung and battered about on the current, they passed within near sight of the lighthouse, and they might have thanked God that they passed no nearer, for to have passed nearer would have been certain death. The white waves dashed over it, enveloped its tall strong pillar that buffeted them back, like a noble will in the midst of calumny and persecution; _they_ fell back hissing and discomfited, and could not dim its silver or quench its flame but _it_ glowed on with steady lustre in the midst of them--flung its victorious path of splendour over their raging motion, warned from the sunken reef the weary mariner, and looked forth untroubled with its broad, calm eye into the madness and fury of the tempest-haunted night. Through this broad track of light the boat was driven, and Walter shouted at the top of his voice with all his remaining strength. The three men in the lighthouse fancied indeed, as they acknowledged afterwards, that they had heard some shouts; but strange, mysterious, inarticulate voices are often borne upon the wind, and haunt always the lonely wastes of foamy sea. The lighthouse men had often heard these unexplained wailings and weird screams. Many a time they had looked out, and been so continually deceived, that unless human accents were unmistakable and well-defined, they attribute these sounds to other agencies, or to the secret phenomena of the worst storms. And even if they _had_ heard, what could they have done, or how have launched their boat when the billows were running mountain-high about their perilous rock? Charlie had been quiet for a long time, his face hidden on Walter's shoulder; but he had seen the glare which the light threw across the waves, and had observed that they had gradually been driven through it into the blackness again, and he asked, "Have we passed the lighthouse, Walter?" "We have." "Oh, I am so hungry and burning with thirst! Oh! what shall we do?" "Try not to think about it, Charlie; a little fasting won't hurt us much." Another long pause, during which they clung more closely to each other, and their hearts beat side by side, and then Charlie said, in a barely articulate whisper-- "Walter!" "I know what you are going to say, Charlie." "The water in the boat is nearly up to my knees." "We have shipped a great deal, you know." "Yes; and besides that--" "Yes, it is true; there is a leak. Do you mind my putting you down and trying what I can do to bail the water out?" "O Walter, don't put me off your knee--don't let go of me." "Very well, Charlie; it wouldn't be of much use." "Good God!" cried the little boy in a paroxysm of agony, "we are sinking--we are foundering!" They wound their arms round each other, and Walter said, "It is even so, my darling brother. Death is near, but God is with us; and if it is death, then death means rest and heaven. Good-bye, Charlie, good-bye; we will be close together till the end." CHAPTER FORTY.