"Shall we call in Barnes?" he asked; "I am afraid his hands would shake. It looks like a Death's head, and cross-bones combined, in its present most tantalizing attitude. I thought I heard a crack. My young friend, listen. Run you outside, and reconnoitre; it is impossible for me, under any circumstances, to abandon these bones of rapture now. _Impavidum ferient ruinæ._ But I beg you to try a little _alibi_. Go out, and see how things look; and if all is serene, return, and help me." "No, sir," I answered; "if there was a crack, no doubt it was Barnes cracking nuts outside. He fills his pockets with Brazilian nuts, fit only for a blacksmith. If you are ready, sir, so am I. Why, it is not half so big as I am." "It weighs, Tommy, at least five times your weight. We will put up this plank, and slide it down. Here it comes gently! What, you here, Laura! You see, if I don't tell your Ma--as the children say to one another. Let it drop, Tommy, let it drop, if it hurts you." For whether from sudden alarm about Laura, or the damage done to my own wrist, my end of the mass slipped away from me, and turned; and the three-inch plank, we were guiding it down, flew up, as if struck by a cannon-ball, and just missing my head knocked away the main bearers of the roof above us. I saw a great mass coming down upon Laura, and before I could think, I had her in my arms and under me; then a roar, and a flash of light, and black darkness came, and the last sense of spreading arms over her. When I came to know what I was about again, lo there I was lying in a bed of sea-weed; with my head supported by a soft smooth arm coming under the curls at the back of my neck, and my breast laid bare to the wind of the sea, and a great deal of water gone into it. Moreover, I seemed to be dirty all over, as if I had been rolled along a knife-board; and a quantity of grime was in my mouth, so that I could hardly speak for grit. "I don't seem to know where I am," I gasped. "Never mind about that, till by and by;" a soft voice whispered into my ear; and soft lips felt nice, and warm, upon my cheek. "Are you better, oh, darling Tommy, are you better?" "I should be, if I could blow my nose," I said; "there is nothing the matter with me, except that. But what is all this roaring noise, if you please? Is it coming down again? If it does, I am done for." "No, dear! There is nothing coming down at all, except the waves of the sea. There is a heavy ground-swell. But none of it can come near you, dear Tommy." "The Professor said there would be a ground-swell," I answered, with some nerve of memory touched. "There seems to be nothing, that he does not know." "He seems not to have known everything, this time. Did he know that the rock would come down upon Laura, and must have killed her, but for you?" "The rock come down? Oh, I remember now! Something came down. But it was all my fault. And perhaps I have killed her. Oh, please to let me die, if I have killed beautiful Laura!"