"I don't call those who do, men! They are only children! I know many men who would no more cleave to this life than a butterfly would fold his wings and creep into his deserted chrysalis-case. I do care to live—tremendously, but I don't mind where. He who made this room so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!"
"I can't quite follow you," stammered Christina. "I am sorry.
Perhaps it is the cold. I can't feel my hands, I am so cold."
"Leave the wall, and put your arms round my neck. The change will rest me, and the water is already falling! It will go as rapidly as it came!"
"How do you know that?"
"It has sunk nearly a foot in the last fifteen minutes: I have been carefully watching it, you may be sure! It must have been a waterspout, and however much that may bring, it pours it out all at once."
"Oh!" said Christina, with a tremulous joyfulness; "I thought it would go on ever so long!"
"We shall get out of it alive!—God's will be done!"
"Why do you say that? Don't you really mean we are going to be saved?"
"Would you want to live, if he wanted you to die?"
"Oh, but you forget, Mr. Ian, I am not ready to die, like you!" sobbed Christina.