Two axes were got up from below; the sailors worked like beavers, waist-deep in water; one, who had lost his knife, tore at the ropes with his teeth.  After some minutes of reeling, splashing, chopping, and cutting, the fallen mast, the friend who had become an enemy, the angel who had become a demon, was sent drifting through the creamy foam to leeward.  Meantime the mate had sounded the pumps, and brought out of them a clear stream of water, the fresh invasion of ocean.

Directly on this cruel discovery, and as if to heighten its horror to the utmost, the captain, clinging high up the mainmast shrouds, shouted, “Landa-lee!  Get ready the boats.”

Without a word Thurstane hurried down into the cabin to save Clara from this twofold threatening of death.

CHAPTER XL.

When Thurstane got into the cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the deluge into the hold.

The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard.  As he paused at the foot of the stairway to steady himself against a sickening lurch, she uttered a cry of joy and astonishment, and held out her hand.  The cry was not speech; her gladness was far beyond words; it was simply the first utterance of nature; it was the primal inarticulate language.

He had expected to stand at a distance and ask her leave to save her life.  Instead of that, he hurried toward her, caught her in his arms, kissed her hand over and over, called her pet names, uttered a pathetic moan of grief and affection, and shook with inward sobbing.  He did not understand her; he still believed that she had rejected him—­believed that she only reached out to him for help.  But he never thought of charging her with being false or hard-hearted or selfish.  At the mere sight of her asking rescue of him he devoted himself to her.  He dared to kiss her and call her dearest, because it seemed to him that in this awful moment of perhaps mortal separation he might show his love.  If they were to be torn apart by death, and sepulchred possibly in different caves of the ocean, surely his last farewell might be a kiss.

If she talked to him, he scarcely heard her words, and did not realize their meaning.  If it was indeed true that she kissed his cheek, he thought it was because she wanted rescue and would thank any one for it.  She was, as he understood her, like a pet animal, who licks the face of any friend in need, though a stranger.  Never mind; he loved her just the same as if she were not selfish; he would serve her just the same as if she were still his.  He unloosed her arms from his shoulders, wondering that they should be there, and crawling with difficulty to the cabin locker, groped in it for life-preservers.  There was only one in the vessel; that one he buckled around Clara.