"How is that?"
"I shall row," he said quietly. "Will you take the tiller?"
"No!" she replied defiantly, folding her arms. "I will not help you at all!"
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" he murmured.
"I will not, I tell you!" she said. "Frankly, I do not wish to. What is Edward, what are those ships, what is the whole wide world to me beside your safety?"
"I must do it alone as best I can, then," said O'Neill, leaving her side and going forward and unstepping the mast and thrusting out the oars, which he handled with the skill of long practice and strong arms. The difference of speed between the boat and the two ships was now of course greater than before.
"Why fatigue yourself unnecessarily?" she said to him at last, after he had been rowing for some time. "You gain nothing; 'tis useless."
"No matter," was his reply as he desperately tugged at the oars. "I shall at least have the consciousness of knowing I did what I could." But after pulling hard for an hour, he leaned over the handles of the oars and turning his head looked forward. She was right; it was a perfectly hopeless task. The nearest ships were now ten or a dozen miles away, and going farther, when a flash of light pierced the darkness on the horizon, followed some time after by the roar of a heavy gun.