“We shall not be drowned!” said Delphine, half in confidence and half in dread of the sea, which was surging louder and louder through the darkness.

“Not thou!” he answered, cheerily.  “But, Phine, tell them to-morrow that I shall nevermore be solitary and sad.  I leave thee now, and then I shall be with Christ.  I wish I could have spoken to them, but my heart and tongue were heavy.  Hark! there is the bell ringing.”

The bell which is tolled at night, when travellers are crossing the sands, to guide them to the Mont, flung its clear, sharp notes down from the great indistinct rock, looming through the dusk.

“It is like a voice to me, the voice of a friend; but it is too late!” murmured Michel.  “Art thou happy, Delphine, my little one?  When I cease to speak to thee wilt thou not be afraid?  I shall be asleep, perhaps.  Say thy paternoster now, for it is growing late with me.”

The bell was still toiling, but with a quick, hurried movement, as if those who rang it were fevered with impatience.  The roaring of the tide, as it now poured in rapidly over the plain, almost drowned its clang.

“Touch me with thy little hand, touch me quickly!” cried Michel.  “Remember to tell them to-morrow that I loved them all always, and I would have given myself for them as I do for thee.  Adieu, my little Phine.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”

The child told afterward that the water rose so fast that she dared not look at it, but shut her eyes as it spread, white and shimmering, in the moonlight all around her.  She began to repeat her paternoster, but she forgot how the words came.  But she heard Michel, in a loud clear voice, saying “Our Father”; only he also seemed to forget the words, for he did not say more than “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive—.”  Then he became quite silent, and when she spoke to him, after a long while, he did not answer her.  She supposed he had fallen asleep, as he had said, but she could not help crying and calling to him again and again.  The sea-gulls flew past her screaming, but there was no sound of any voice to speak to her.  In spite of what he had said to her beforehand she grew frightened, and thought it was because she had been unkind to Michel le diable that she was left there alone, with the sea swirling to and fro beneath her.

It was not for more than two or three hours that Delphine hung cradled in Michel’s net, for the tide does not lie long round the Mont St. Michel, and flows out again as swiftly as it comes in.  The people followed it out, scattering over the sands in the forlorn hope of finding the dead bodies of Michel Lorio and the child, for they had no expectation of meeting with either of them alive.  At last two or three of them heard the voice of Delphine, who saw the glimmer of their lanterns upon the sands, and called shrilly and loudly for succour.

They found her swinging safely in her net, untouched by the water.  But Michel had sunk down upon his knees, though his arms were still fastened about the stake.  His head had fallen forward upon his breast, and his thick wet hair covered his face.  They lifted him without a word spoken.  He had saved Delphine’s life at the cost of his own.