“Ay,” I answered. “She will go to pieces now.”

The minister rose to his feet. “I am no mariner,” he said, “but once in the water I can swim you like any fish. There have been times when I have reproached the Lord for that he cased a poor silly humble preacher like me with the strength and seeming of some might man of old, and there have been times when I have thanked him for that strength. I thank him now. Captain Percy, if you will trust the lady to me, I will take her safely to that shore.”

I raised my head from the figure over which I was bending, and looked first at the still tumultuous sea, and then at the gigantic frame of the minister. When we had made that frail raft no swimmer could have lived in that shock of waves; now there was a