The two in the water watched with fascinated eyes, filled with awe.  When it was all over Agatha turned to her companion with a long-drawn breath.  Jim looked as one looks whose last hope has failed.

“I could never have let you go aboard, anyway!” He loved her anew for that speech, but knew not how to meet her eyes.

“Well, Ulysses lost his raft, too!” he managed to say.

“He saw the sunrise, too, just as we have seen it; and he saw a distant island, ‘that seemed a shield laid on the misty sea.’  Let’s look hard now, each time the wave lifts us.  Perhaps we also shall see an island.”

“We must swim harder; you are chilled through.”

“Oh, no,” she laughed.  “I shivered at the thought of what a fright I must look.  I always did hate to get my hair wet.”

“You look all right to me.”

They were able to laugh, and so kept up heart.  They tried to calculate the direction the yacht had taken when she left port, and where the land might lie; and when they had argued about it, they set out to swim a certain way.  In their hearts each felt that any calculation was futile, but they pretended to be in earnest.  They could not see far, but they created for themselves a goal and worked toward it, which is of itself a happiness.

So they watched and waited, ages long.  Hope came to them again presently.  James, treading water, thrust up his head and scented the air.

“I smell the salt marsh, which means land!” He sniffed again.  “Yes, decidedly!”

A moment later it was there, before their vision—­that “shield laid on the misty sea” which was the land.  Only it was not like a shield, but a rocky spit of coast land, with fir trees farther back.  James made for the nearest point, though his heart shrank to see how far away it was.  Fatigue and anxiety were taking their toll of his vigor.  Neither one had breath to spare even for exultation that the land was in sight.  Little by little Agatha grew more quiet, though not less brave.  It took all her strength to fight the water—­that mighty element which indifferently supports or engulfs the human atom.  If she feared, she made no sign.  Bravely she kept her heart, and carefully she saved her strength, swimming slowly, resting often, and wasting no breath in talk.

But more and more frequently her eyes rested wistfully on James, mutely asking him for help.  He watched her minute by minute, often begging her to let him help her.

“Oh, no, not yet; I can go on nicely, if I just rest a little.  There—­thank you.”

Once she looked at him with such pain in her eyes that he silently took her hands, placed them on his shoulder and carried her along with his stronger stroke.  She was reassured by his strength, and presently she slipped away from him, smiling confidently again as she swam alongside.

“I’m all right now; but I suddenly thought, what if anything should happen to you, and I be left alone!  Or what if I should get panicky and clutch you and drag you down, the way people do sometimes!”