So they began their journey. Zeb had taken barely a dozen strokes when the other groaned and began to hang more heavily on his neck. But he fought on, though very soon the struggle became a blind and horrible nightmare to him. The arm seemed to creep round his throat and strangle him, and the blackness of a great night came down over his eyes. Still he struck out, and, oddly enough, found himself calling to his comrade to hold tight.
When Sim Udy and Elias Sweetland dashed in from the shore and swam to the rescue, they found the pair clinging to the line, and at a standstill. And when the four were helped through the breakers to firm earth, Zeb tottered two steps forward and dropped in a swoon, burying his face in the sand.
"He's not as strong as I," muttered the stranger, staring at Parson Babbage in a dazed, uncertain fashion, and uttering the words as if they had no connection with his thoughts. "I'm afraid—sir—I've broken—his heart."
And with that he, too, fainted, into the Parson's arms.
"Better carry the both up to Sheba," said Farmer Tresidder.
Ruby lay still abed when Mary Jane, who had been moving about the kitchen, sleepy-eyed, getting ready the breakfast, dashed up-stairs with the news that two dead men had been taken off the wreck and were even now being brought into the yard.
"You coarse girl," she exclaimed, "to frighten me with such horrors!"
"Oh, very well," answered Mary Jane, who was in a rebellious mood, "then I'm goin' down to peep; for there's a kind o' what-I-can't-tell-'ee about dead men that's very enticin', tho' it do make you feel all-overish."
By and by she came back panting, to find Ruby already dressed.
"Aw, Miss Ruby, dreadful news I ha' to tell, tho' joyous in a way.
Would 'ee mind catchin' hold o' the bed-post to give yoursel' fortitude?
Now let me cast about how to break it softly. First, then, you must
know he's not dead at all—"