At the renewed miracle of light, and at sight of the yacht, Jimmy’s hopes were reborn.  His spirit bathed in the wonder of the day and was made strong again.  The night with its horrors of struggle and its darkness was past, forgotten in the flush of hope that came with the light.

Together they struck out toward the yacht, fresh with new courage.  Now that he could see plainly, Jim swam always a little behind Agatha, keeping a watchful eye.  She still took the water gallantly, nose and closed mouth just topping the wave, like a spaniel.  An occasional side-stroke would bring her face level to the water, with a backward smile for her companion.  He gloried in her spirit, even while he feared for her strength.

It was a longer pull to the yacht than they had counted upon, a heavy tax on their powers of endurance.  Jim came up to find Agatha floating on her back and put his hand under her shoulders, steadying her easily.

“Now you can really rest,” he said.

“I’ve looked toward the horizon so long, I thought I’d look up, way up, for a change,” she said cheerfully.  “That’s where the skylarks go, when they want to sing—­straight up into heaven!”

“Doesn’t it make you want to sing?”

She showed no surprise at the question.

“Yes, it does, almost.  But just as I thought of the skylarks, I remembered something else; something that kept haunting me in the darkness all night—­

  “’Master in song, good-by, good-by,
  Down to the dim sea-line—­’

I thought something or somebody was surely lost down in ’the dim sea-line’ last night.”

“Who can tell?  But I had a better thought than yours:  Ulysses, like us, swimming over the ‘wine-dark sea’!  Do you remember it?  ’Then two days and two nights on the resistless waves he drifted; many a time his heart faced death.’”

“That’s not a bit better thought than mine; but I like it.  And I know what follows, too.  ’But when the fair-haired dawn brought the third day, then the wind ceased; there came a breathless calm; and close at hand he spied the coast, as he cast a keen glance forward, upborne on a great wave.’  That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, but I hope it is.  ‘The wine-dark sea’ and the ‘rosy-fingered dawn’ are all I remember; though I’m glad you know what comes next.  It’s a good omen.  But look at the yacht; she’s acting strange!”

As the girl turned to her stroke, their attention was caught and held by the convulsions of the Jeanne D’Arc.  There was a grim fascination in the sight.

It was obvious that she was sinking.  While they had been resting, her hull had sunk toward the water-line, her graceful bulk and delicate masts showing strange against ocean and sky.  Now she suddenly tipped down at her stern; her bow was thrown up out of the water for an instant, only to be drawn down again, slowly but irresistibly, as if she were pulled by a giant’s unseen hand.  With a sudden last lurch she disappeared entirely, and only widening circles fleetingly marked the place of her going.