The voice, the touch, awakened him, roused him to consciousness as wide as it ever had been.
“I would not be in such safety now if I had the opportunity,” came the reply, from the swimming head. “Our chances are desperate, yet I am happier at this moment than I have been at any time since—that day.”
“My darling, how selfish I am, resting at ease here while you have been struggling all these hours in the water,” she said. “Come up here and rest beside me, sweetheart. The thing will carry us both. Then we can talk nearer—closer to each other.”
“No. It will hardly carry you dry and comfortable. Besides, I might capsize it, and what then?”
For answer she began deliberately to untie the knots of the lashings that secured her.
“What—what are you doing?”
“I am going to take your place. Then you will be able to rest.”
“Mona! Mona I don’t be foolish. You can’t swim a stroke.”
“But the lifebelt will keep me up, and I can get the same amount of support you are having.”
“No, no, I tell you. Don’t loosen the knots. I might not be able to lash them again so easily. Stay. I will try if the thing will hold us both, if only for a little while.”