After a time the girl began to moan with pain and terror, but as numbness gradually robbed her of sensation she became quiet.  A little later her grip upon his clothing relaxed and he saw that she was collapsing.  He drew her to him and held her so that her face lay upturned and her hair floated about his shoulders.  In this position she could not drown, at least while his strength lasted.  But he was rapidly losing control of himself; his teeth were clicking loosely, his muscles shook and twitched It required a great effort to shout, and he thought that his voice did not carry so far as at first.  Therefore he fell silent, paddling with his free arm and kicking, to keep his blood stirring.

Several times he gave up and floated quietly, but courage was ingrained in him; deep down beneath his consciousness was a vitality, an inherited stubborn resistance to death, of which he knew nothing.  It was that unidentified quality of mind which supports one man through a great sickness or a long period of privation, while another of more robust physique succumbs.  It was the same quality which brings one man out from desert wastes, or the white silence of the polar ice, while the bodies of his fellows remain to mark the trail.  This innate power of supreme resistance is found in chosen individuals throughout the animal kingdom, and it was due to it alone that Murray O’Neil continued to fight the tide long after he had ceased to exert conscious control.

At length there came through the man’s dazed sensibilities a sound different from those he had been hearing:  it was a human voice, mingled with the measured thud of oars in their sockets.  It roused him like an electric current and gave him strength to cry out hoarsely.  Some one answered him; then out of the darkness to seaward emerged a deeper blot, which loomed up hugely yet proved to be no more than a life-boat banked full of people.  It came to a stop within an oar’s-length of him.  From the babble of voices he distinguished one that was familiar, and cried the name of Johnny Brennan.  His brain had cleared now, a great dreamlike sense of thanksgiving warmed him, and he felt equal to any effort.  He was vaguely amazed to find that his limbs refused to obey him.

His own name was being pronounced in shocked tones; the splash from an oar filled his face and strangled him, but he managed to lay hold of the blade, and was drawn in until outstretched hands seized him.

An oarsman was saying:  “Be careful, there!  We can’t take him in without swamping.”

But Brennan’s voice shouted:  “Make room or I’ll bash in your bloody skull.”

Another protest arose, and O’Neil saw that the craft was indeed loaded to the gunwales.

“Take the girl—­quick,” he implored.  “I’ll hang on.  You can—­tow me.”

The limp form was removed from his side and dragged over the thwarts while a murmur of excited voices went up.

“Can you hold out for a minute, Murray?” asked Brennan.