Poorly clad for such a vigil, thin from days of want, fasting, exhausted by excitement and grief, she had no strength left to bear bravely any further trial. Though Christian's desperate emphasis stood out to bar despair, she told herself his coming was impossible, and her spirit quailed in utter cowardice as she realised her own outlook. She was afraid of the night, and her engagement had taken no limit of time. Should the dreaded ice-wind of the season rise, there were peril to life; but her heart died under a worse terror, that increased as waste and tree bulked large and shapeless under drawing dark. For was it not the Eve of Christmas, when the strict limitations of nature were so relaxed that things inanimate could quit station, and very beasts speak like men, and naked spirits be clothed with form. Her mortal senses were averse. With desperate desire for relief she scanned the large through the longest hour of her life. Night was in the valleys, but on the uplands twilight still, when against the sky a runner came. He, dear saviour. But his footsteps made no sound; but he showed too white. Doubt of agony that this was not he in human flesh froze her, till he came and stood, and not seeing her close crouched, uttered his heart in a sound dreadful to hear. 'Here, here!' cried Rhoda, and had her hands on him before her eyes had fairly realised him. He was mostly naked. Coatless, shirtless, unshod, his breeks and his hair clung damp, showing by what way he had come free. She held him, and laughed and sobbed. 'You have it?' he said. 'Give it here--give it.' 'This also--this first. Drink--eat.' 'No; I cannot stay.' 'You shall--you must,' she urged. 'Do you owe me nothing? What, never a word?' He declined impatience to her better counsel; and when he had got the rowan and belted it safe, to the praise of her providence he drank eagerly and ate. Rhoda spied a dark streak on his shoulder. 'You are hurt--oh!' 'Only skin-deep. Salt water stanched it.' 'And what of them? Christian, what have you done?' she asked with apprehension. 'Yes; I have a charge for you. Oh, their skins are whole all. Can you step on with me a pace? You will not be afraid?' She looked at the wan south-west, and the sable heath, and the stark trees; but she could answer now: 'No,' stoutly and truly, and shiver for fear only. He withheld his pace for her, she stretched to a stride for him. 'Well done, I know,' she said, 'but tell me how.' He gave a meagre tale, but many a detail she heard later to fill it out. It was easy doing according to Christian, when time and place suited, to beat out a rib of the boat, to stand his ground for a moment while the sea accomplished for him, then to drop overboard when blades struck too quick and close. The boat went down, he said, near three miles from shore. 'O Christian! are any drowned?'