And then at last we came together, and, halting, looked into one another’s pallid faces like dead souls meeting on the banks of Styx. CHAPTER X. THE DARKEST HOUR. The memory of that awful time is soothed and assuaged to me by virtue of the strong soul who, under Providence, was given to us to command it. If destiny had used him its instrument to precipitate the tragedy, long, I am sure, hanging over our heads, it had done so consciously, by higher command, in order to neutralize the effects of its own inexorable decree. So thought Mr. Sant presently; and gratefully we acquiesced, giving thanks to Providence. Like children, we had played with fire, not realizing, nor, I think, deserving the consequences. All honour, then, after God, to His little self-possessed deputy, who of his confidence and resolution helped us to the nerve to escape them. For a time Harry and I--I may surely admit it without shame--were beside ourselves. To be thus cast away and abandoned on a sandbank in mid-ocean--for to all appearances, and intents and purposes, our fate seemed nothing less--it was horrible beyond words. An hour--perhaps two hours--and a lingering death must overtake us. Already--we could see by the near lines of foam, could gather from the changed whisper of the tide--the seaward surges were freshening to their return. We hurried to and fro, wringing our hands, crying for impossible help, never once in our distraction holding escape as conceivable save by external agency. The bank on which we stood stretched north and south, a sleek, hateful mockery. It were useless to traverse it up and down; yet we went, as if to hurry this way and that over it were to summon of our agonized need a causeway to the unseen shore five miles distant; we went, until the terror of ranging adrift, beyond recovery, from our one hope of resource, already grown a desolate phantom behind us in the mist, sent us frantically back to the side of the motionless figure, which had not once stirred since we parted from it raving. “Mr. Pilbrow!” I cried. “_What_ are we to do?” “Ah!” he answered, sharp as an echo: “to command yourselves!” It was like a tonic of steel served from a pistol. “We will--we do,” said Harry, forcing down his terror in one great gulp. “Dick, don’t be a fool!” Some shame, I think, stiffened me. The debility of despair conceded a hope to the mere prospect of discussion. What a courage was this to succumb without an effort; to have reason, and yield it to the shadow falling before the fact! “All right,” I muttered. “I’m an ass. Only let him tell us what we’re to do. He brought this on us, you know.” He showed no resentment of my bitterness.