He told me, in his taciturn way, that her crew had made safe just in time. As they scrambled aboard the hurricane struck. The mate, knowing with laudatory foresight that the masts were in danger of destruction, had rushed forward and chopped the anchor cable. Even that had not saved the mainsail from being torn away. As to the fate of our yacht neither he nor I felt much concern. I knew her to be a staunch craft, handled by able seamen, and felt that she would come out on top even if upon the coast of Mexico. Then, with a simplicity that deeply touched me, he added that as she was about to be blown off for an absence of, perhaps, some days, and he realized that I would be in need of help, he dived overboard. "But," I cried, remembering the anger of that seething water, "you took your life in your hands!" "Me swim all over," came his quiet reply; but whether he meant all over the world, or all over as might apply to his personal self, was left in doubt. Anyway, I do not believe there is another man living who could have breasted that hurricane-lashed sea for such a distance. I could judge something of what it cost him by the way he had gasped for breath--and since then I have seen him finish a fifteen-mile run, breathing little faster than normally. This gives an idea of his task that night, and the risk he took--and the indifference with which he took it; yet about his stupendous strength I can not write, but only marvel. Wet clothes are not conducive to sleep, but I was thoroughly tired, healthily drowsy. There were more questions to be asked, plans to be discussed, but my gods descended; and, lo, when I looked again the sun was shining in all its glory. CHAPTER XIII ON TO DEATH RIVER! Some day I shall write an ode, not to sleep but to the pleasure of awaking when the sleep has been deep and dreamless, when the day is ushered in by smiling skies, a laughing earth, and a forest of joyous songsters. More especially beautiful is the face of nature after a storm-swept night, for then, indeed, the blinking dawn itself reflects the gratitude of mundane things for their deliverance. In the forest one hears a water-drip--aftermath of rains; a gentle, almost noiseless fall of crystal drop on crystal drop tapping the loamy soil, and imagination sings in whatsoever key the soul is tuned.