Again she murmured, "I have prayed many, many times to have you. I did not know how the answer would come. But this is it."
"My darling, I have had visions about you," was another of these confessions. "When I had been praying for you nearly all one night, there was a great light came into the room. It was some promise for you. I knew it was then; something told me so. Oh, how happy I was!"
Presently she added, "My dear love, we shall be just as happy as that. We shall live in great light together. God will be pleased to see plainly how we love each other."
Her only complaints were a patient "Isn't it hard?" when a new billow had covered her from head to foot, crushed her pitilessly against the shrouds, and nearly smothered her.
The next words would perhaps be, "I am so sorry for you, my darling. I wish for your sake that you had not come. But oh, how you help me!"
"I am glad to be here," firmly and honestly and passionately responded the young man, raising her wet hand and covering it with kisses. "But you shall not die."
He was bearing like a man and she like a woman. He was resolved to fight his battle to the last; she was weak, resigned, gentle, and ready for heaven.
The land, even to its minor features, was now distinctly visible, not more than a mile to leeward. As they rose on the billows they could distinguish the long beach, the grassy slopes, and wooded knolls beyond it, the green lawn on which stood the village of Monterey, the whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs of the houses, and the groups of people who were watching the oncoming tragedy.
"Are you not going to launch the boats?" shouted Thurstane after a glance at the awful line of frothing breakers which careered back and forth athwart the beach.
"They are both stove," returned the captain calmly. "We must go ashore as we are."