“I can swim,” said Hildegarde.  “I am all right, truly.  Can’t I swim on the other side and help her along, instead of hindering?”

“To be sure.  Hurrah for you!”

Hilda grasped the canoe with her left hand and tried to swim with her right.  She could do little, however, against the furious battling of wind and wave; and Captain Roger set his teeth, and wondered whether he was going to be beaten this time.  “I won’t!” he said aloud to the storm; and shook his head, lion-like, and braced his strong shoulders, and swam on grimly.  A few moments of silent, breathless fighting, the wind screeching, like Bedlam loose, the foam driving and hissing, the lightning blazing, incessant, maddening.

Could they reach the shore?  Hildegarde asked herself.  Was this only prolonging the agony, dragging this brave man to death with her, on her account?  If he were not hampered with her, he would have been safe on shore before this.  If she were a girl in a story-book, she would loose her hold now, and sink silently; but she was not a girl in a story-book.  She was a very real Hilda Grahame, and she did not want to sink.  And how could our poor Hilda know that the Merryweather obstinacy was roused, and that Roger meant to save her and himself, and the canoe, too, if he had to swim across the lake to do it?  But now she heard him cry out, in a joyful tone:  “Courage, little girl! here we are, all right!”

Next moment,—­oh, joy! oh, wonder past belief! she felt the ground beneath her feet.  She was walking, standing upright on the good, solid, blessed earth.  The canoe touched bottom, grazed, floated again, then grounded gently and was still.

“Shake yourself as well as you can,” said Roger, “while I haul her up.  So, now then! under this, and here we are!”

In the turn of a hand he hauled the canoe up on the sand, turned it over, and drew Hildegarde beneath the shelter.  A clump of bushes broke the force of the wind, so they could breathe in peace, without having to fight for every breath.

For a few minutes they sat in silence, panting, dripping, gazing at each other with dilated eyes.  Their thoughts were utterly irrelevant, as thoughts are apt to be after a great crisis.  Roger was thinking that a pretty face looked much prettier wet than dry, and compared apples and flowers; Hildegarde wondered if Saint Bernard dogs could swim.  “Because Newfoundlands are black, you know,” she found herself saying aloud in an explanatory tone.

“I beg your pardon!” said Roger, remorsefully.  “I—­I am afraid you are very wet.”

Hildegarde felt that she must either cry or laugh, so she laughed.  “If it were not for you, Captain, I should not be alive now.  I should have gone down, down,—­and the water was so black.  Was it ever anything but black in that place?” Her voice shook, but she pulled herself together instantly.  “Why do you look troubled, Captain?” she asked.  “The island is solid, isn’t it?”