But the waves and winds make sport of beliefs. Prayers count nothing against that angry surge. Two boats are already swept from the davits, and are gone upon the whirling waters. A third, with infinite pains, is dropped into the yeast. It is hard to tell who gives the orders. But, once afloat, there is a rush upon it, and away it goes,--overcrowded, and within eyeshot lifts, turns, and a crowd of swimmers float for a moment,--one with an oar, another with a thwart that the waves have torn out,--and in the yeast of waters they vanish. One boat only remains, and it is launched with more careful handling; three cling by the wreck; the rest--save only Madam Maverick and Reuben--are within her, as she tosses still in the lee of the vessel. "There 's room!" cries some one; "jump quick! for God's sake!" And Reuben, with some strange, generous impulse, seizes upon Madam Maverick, and, before she can rebel or resist, has dropped her over the rail. The men grapple her and drag her in; but in the next moment the little cockle of a boat is drifted yards away. The few who are left--the boatswain among them--are toiling on the wet deck to give a last signal from the little brass howitzer on the forecastle. As the sharp crack breaks on the air,--a miniature sound in that howl of the storm,--the red flash of the gun gives Reuben, as the boat lurches toward the wreck again, a last glance of Madam Maverick,--her hands clasped, her eyes lifted, and calm as ever. More than ever too her face was like the face of Adele,--such as the face of Adele must surely become, when years have sobered her and her buoyant faith has ripened into calm. And from that momentary glance of the serene countenance, and that flashing associated memory of Adele, a subtile, mystic influence is born in him, by which he seems suddenly transfused with the same trustful serenity which just now he gazed upon with wonder. If indeed the poor lady is already lost,--he thinks it for a moment,--her spirit has fanned and cheered him as it passed. Once more, as if some mysterious hand had brought them to his reach, he grapples with those lost lines of hope and trust which in that youthful year of his exuberant emotional experience he had held and lost,--once more, now, in hand,--once more he is elated with that wonderful sense of a religious poise, that, it would seem, no doubts or terrors could overbalance. Unconsciously kneeling on the wet deck, he is rapt into a kind of ecstatic indifference to winds, to waves, to danger, to death. The boom of a gun is heard to the northward. It must be from shore. There are helpers at work, then. Some hope yet for this narrow tide of life, which just seemed losing itself in some infinite flow beyond. Life is, after all, so sweet! The boatswain forward labors desperately to return an answering signal; but the spray, the slanted deck, the overleaping waves, are too much for him. Darkness and storm and despair rule again.