The next moment the balloon gave a tremendous bound.  I know that I nearly fell upon my face, and Angela was thrown violently into the bottom of the car.  For an appreciable interval not one of us realised that Jim had slipped overboard.

“The trade’s got us,” said the old man.  “We shall just make them dunes.”

“Oh, thank God!” exclaimed Angela.

By the tone of her voice, by the smile parting her lips, I could see that she did not know what had happened.  Terror had dulled all faculties save the one overmastering instinct of self-preservation.  Thorpe was about to speak, but Ajax caught his eye and with a gesture silenced him.  Once more the balloon began to fall——­

* * * * *

We were thrown out upon the dunes.  Some of us were badly bruised.  When we staggered to our feet, Angela said quickly—­

“Why, where’s Jim?”

Thorpe told her; let us give him credit for that.  When he had finished, he put out his hand, but she turned from him to Ajax.

“Come,” she said.

She ran past us towards the beach, instinctively taking the right direction.  As she ran she called shrilly:  “Jim—­Jim!”

Ajax followed.  For an instant Thorpe and I were alone, face to face.

“Why did he do it?” he asked.

“Because he thought that Angela had married the wrong man; but she—­ didn’t.”

When I caught Ajax up, Angela was still ahead, running like a mad creature.

“Jim never took off his boots,” said Ajax.

“Nor his coat.”

“All the same, the love of life is strong.”

“We don’t know how far he was from the water; the fall may have killed him.”

“I feel in my bones that he is not dead, and that Angela will find him.”

We pressed on, unwilling to be outstripped by a woman, but sensible that we were running ourselves to a standstill.  The fog was thicker near the water’s edge, and Angela’s figure loomed through the mist like that of a wraith, but we still heard her piteous cry:  “Jim—­Jim!”

We were nearly spent when we overtook her.  She had stopped where the foam from the breakers lay thick upon the sand.

“Listen!” she said.

We heard nothing but our thumping hearts and the raucous note of some sea-bird.

“He answered me!” she asserted with conviction.  “There!”

Certainly my ears caught a faint cry to the left.  We ran on, forgetting our bruises.  Again Angela called, and out of the mist beyond the breakers came an answering voice.  We shouted back and plunged into the surf.  Angela knelt down upon the sand.

Afterwards we admitted that Angela had saved his life, although Jim could not have fought his way through the breakers without our help.  Indeed, when we got him ashore, I made certain that he was dead.  Had Angela’s instinct or intuition failed, had she hesitated for a few minutes, Jim would have drowned within a few hundred yards of the spot where the balloon struck.  Since, Jim has maintained that he was sinking when he heard her voice; her faint, attenuated tones infused strength into his limbs and hope into his heart.