"They won't try. There's a break in the line of rocks some way off: But in this sea—no, they won't try. They'll just keep near, if they can, and pick up some of us. That's the one chance. Time for your lifebelt!"
She put it on obediently, only murmuring, "What is the use? It may just mean longer torture."
In the distance they had glimpses of the boat, which, after two failures, was at length fairly off. It seemed a mere cockle-shell, tossed from billow to billow, and its advance in the teeth of the rising tide was of necessity slow. Millie saw it, and lost it, and saw it, and lost it anew. Was it afloat still, or had it gone down?
In the distance they had glimpses of the boat.
Then she found that the shore was blotted out as by a veil, the air around having grown thick with flying spray; and the thundering crash of breakers was suddenly close at hand. She had not known that they were quite so near. The barque seemed for a moment to pause, almost to draw back, and to plunge forward with a fearful crash.
Millie was dashed flat on her face by the concussion, and when she slowly struggled to her knees, clinging for support to rope and bulwark, she found the deck so slanting that to stand upright was no longer possible. The barque was lying over almost on her side, and Millie was alone. Even Hero had vanished, and through the masses of flying spray, which half blinded and half stifled her, she could catch no glimpse of her brother or the child.
For one instant the veil of spray was flung aside by the wind, and she saw two of the crew, clinging to the vessel as she herself clung; but the Captain was not there. A faint whining next became audible, and Hero struggled, dripping, to her side, to seize her dress in his jaws, with an evident determination that they two should not be again separated.
The barque seemed to be settling slowly over, and every plank quivered with the shock of those heavy seas, which swept her from stem to stern. Millie held on determinately; but she knew that it would not be possible to hold on long. Breath and strength were fast failing.
Yet somehow she no longer felt afraid. In the booming rush of billows and the blinding dash of spray, a vision had come to her eyes of a distant lull and a Cross thereupon, and ONE whom she knew hanging patiently on the Cross; and her whole soul leapt up in a passionate prayer for pardon, because she had doubted His love.