As the rain began to descend, Agatha bethought herself earnestly as to what could be done.  She first persuaded James to drink a little more of the milk, and afterward took what was left herself—­less than half a cupful.  Then she set the bucket out to catch the rain.  She felt keenly the need of food and water; and now that there was no one to heed her movements, she found it difficult to keep up the show of courage.  She still trusted in Hand; but even at best he might yet be several hours in returning; and cold and hunger can reduce even the stoutest heart.  If Hand did not return—­but there was no answer to that if.  She believed he would come.

The soft rain cast a pall over the ocean, so that only a small patch of sea was visible; and it flattened the waves until the blue-flashing, white-capped sea of yesterday was now a smooth, gray surface, touched here and there by a bit of frothy scum.  Agatha looked out through the deep curtain of mist, remembering the night, the Jeanne D’Arc, and her recent peril.  Most vividly of all she heard in her memory a voice shouting, “Keep up!  I’m coming, I’m coming!” Ah, what a welcome coming that had been!  Was he to die, now, here on her hands, after the worst of their struggle was over?  She turned quickly back to James, vowing in her heart it should not be; she would save him if it lay in human power to save.

Her hardest task was to move their camp up into the edge of the brushwood, where they might have the shelter of the trees.  There was a place, near the handle of the sickle, where the rock-wall partly disappeared, and the undergrowth from the cliff reached almost to the beach.  It was from here that Hand had begun his ascent; and here Agatha chose a place under a clump of bayberry, where she could make another bed for James.  The ground there was still comparatively dry.

She coaxed James to his feet and helped him, with some difficulty, up to the more sheltered spot.  He was stronger, physically, now in his delirium than he had been during his period of sanity in the night.  She made him sit down while she ran back to gather an armful of the fir boughs to spread out for his bed; but she had scarcely started back for the old camp before James got to his feet and staggered after her.  She met him just as she was returning, and had to drop her load, take her patient by the arm, and guide him back to the new shelter.  He went peacefully enough, but leaned on her more and more heavily, until at last his knees weakened under him and he fell.  Agatha’s heart smote her.

They were near the bayberry bush, though entirely out from its protection.  As the drizzling rain settled down thicker and thicker about them, Agatha tried again.  Slowly she coaxed James to his knees, and slowly, she helped him creep, as she had crept toward him in the night, along between the stones and up into the sheltered corner under the bayberry.  It was only a little better than the open, and it had taken such prodigies of strength to get there!