The strength of the two struggling old men was sinking fast.  The Signor Grimaldi had, thus far, generously sustained his friend, who was less expert than himself in the water, and he continued to cheer him with a hope he did not feel himself, nobly refusing to the last to separate their fortunes.

“How dost find thyself, old Melchior?” he asked.  “Cheer thee, friend—­I think there is succor at hand.”

The water gurgled at the mouth of the baron, who was near the gasp.

“’Tis late—­bless thee, dearest Gaetano—­God be with my child—­my Adelheid—­poor Adelheid!”

The utterance of this precious name, under a father’s agony of spirit, most probably saved his life.  The sinewy arm of Sigismund, directed by the words, grasped his dress, and he felt at once that a new and preserving power had interposed between him and the caverns of the lake.  It was time, for the water had covered the face of the failing baron, ere the muscular arm of the youth came to perform its charitable office.

“Yield thee to the dog, Signore,” said Sigismund, clearing his mouth of water to speak calmly, once assured of his own burthen; “trust to his sagacity, and,—­God keep us in mind!—­all may yet be well!”

The Signor Grimaldi retained sufficient presence of mind to follow this advice, and it was probably quite as fortunate that his friend had so far lost his consciousness, as to become an unresisting burthen in the hands of Sigismund.

“Nettuno!—­gallant Nettuno!”—­swept past them on the gale for the first time, the partial hushing of the winds permitting the clear call of Maso to reach so far.  The sound directed the efforts of Sigismund, though the dog had swum steadily away the moment he had the Genoese in his gripe, and with a certainty of manner that showed he was at no loss for a direction.

But Sigismund had taxed his powers too far.  He, who could have buffeted an ordinary sea for hours, was now completely exhausted by the unwonted exertions, the deadening influence of the tempest, and the log-like weight of his burthen He would not desert the father of Adelheid, and yet each fainting and useless stroke told him to despair.  The dog had already disappeared in the darkness, and he was even uncertain again of the true position of the bark.  He prayed in agony for a single glimpse of the rocking masts and yards, or to catch one syllable of the cheering voice of Maso.  But in both his wishes were vain.  In place of the former, he had naught but the veiled misty light, that had come on with the hurricane; and, instead of the latter, his ears were filled with the washing of the waves and the roars of the gusts.  The blasts now descended to the surface of the lake, and now went whirling and swelling upward, in a way to lead the listener to fancy that the viewless winds might, for once, be seen.  For a single painful instant, in one of those disheartening moments of despair that will come over the stoutest, his hand was about to relinquish its hold of the baron, and to make the last natural struggle for life; but that fair and modest picture of maiden loveliness and truth, which had so long haunted his waking hours and adorned his night-dreams, interposed to prevent the act.  After this brief and fleeting weakness, the young man seemed endowed with new energy.  He swam stronger, and with greater apparent advantage, than before.