“‘In a moment,’ I thought, ‘I would stop to bail it out.’

“It was a boat that I saw.  It moved on so swiftly,—­the chime of the oars, tiny oars they were, was so sweetly, softly musical, the very drippling drops fell so like globules of silver, that I forgot my mission.  I held my oars and waited.  At last—­how long it seemed!—­I saw the boat come into the bridge of light.  I saw fair, golden hair let loose to the sea-breezes that began to blow.  I saw two hands striving with the oars.  I saw the owner of the hair and of the hands, a young girl, sitting in that boat, coming right across the way where I ought to be going. “‘Does she mean to stay me?’ I said, and even then my will rose up.

“I bent to the oars; but whilst I had watched her, my boat had been rapidly filling.  I was forced to stay.  My feet were already in the waves.  Right across my pathway she came, close up to my filling boat.

“Her eyes were in the shadow, the moon being behind, but her voice rang out these words:—­

“’Mr. Axtell, you’re committing a great sin.  You’re putting your own life in peril.  You’re killing your mother.  I have come to stay you.  Will you come on shore?’

“I only looked at her.  When I found voice, it was to ask,—­

“‘Who are you?’

“‘Who I am doesn’t matter now.  Drowning men mustn’t ask questions’; and, putting one oar within my boat, now more than half filled, she drew her own to its side, and said,—­“‘Come in.’

“‘Conquered by a woman,’ I thought.  ’Never!’—­and I began to search for the cup, that I might give back to the sea its intruding contents.

“I had left it in the other boat.

“‘Conquered by thine own sin,’ said the young girl, still holding fast to my boat.

“‘Not so easily, fairy, or whoe’er thou art,’ I said; for I saw that her boat was well furnished with both bailing-bowl and sponge, and I reached out for them, saying, ‘I’m going on the track, farther out.’

“She divined my intent, and quick as was my thought were her two hands; she cast both bowl and sponge into the sea.

“‘Mr. Axtell,’ she said; ’there’s a power in the world greater than your own.  The sooner you yield, the less you’ll feel the thorns.  Your mother, on the shore, is suffering agonies for you.  Will you come into this boat, now?’

“The boats had floated around a little, and had changed places.  I looked into her eyes; there was nothing there that said, ’I’m trying to conquer you.’  There was something in them that I had never seen made visible on earth before,—­something radiant, with a might of right, that made me yield.  She saw that I was coming.  I lifted my feet out of the inches of water that had nearly filled it, put my oars across her tiny boat, and, leaving my own River-Ribbon to its fate, I entered that wherein my preserver had come out.  I took the oars from her passive hands; she went to the front of the boat