As he came up from the depths he struck a heavy timber, and with the strength of desperation he dragged his weight up on it and clung fast.
"Land may be in sight," was his thought, "and I shall never know!" Lawrence Gordon was blind.
Hours had passed. The wind-lashed water beat him as he lay on the timber. Fear and the cold drove him to rave at life and death alike. Finally, over the roar of the wind, he caught the tumbling of breakers. His plank was spun round, the swell lifted him from his position, and the next breaker rolled him past the water-line.
Once with the feel of the sand beneath his feet he ran until a rock caught him above the knees and sent him headlong.
When he regained consciousness he returned to the water to hunt for clams. As he came ashore again he tripped over an object that on investigation proved a woman.
Claire Barkley answered to his ministrations, and recognized the blind man she had observed on the boat. She could furnish the eyes for an investigation of their situation inland, but her ankle had been sprained in the wreck and she was unable to walk.
When months after, just as they had reached the limit of human endurance—what with hunger, the cold, and privation—they stumbled into the cabin of Philip Ortez. The Spanish mountaineer declared it no less than a miracle that a blind man should have carried a woman in his arms half across the Andes—from the coast to the borders of Bolivia.
Then they settled down to spend the winter in Philip's cabin. And now the latent antagonism of the woman, who was so curiously stirred by the apparent coldness of this blind sculptor to her charm, began to plan the man's punishment.
Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the beginning of the serial's third installment. The summary at the beginning of the serial's fourth installment, if one was present, was not available when preparing this electronic edition.