“I implore you! I implore you! What are you going to do?”
“Save you! and save myself!”
“It is too late.”
“Too late? But the night has come! I no longer see your dear eyes; I no longer see your lips. Why should I not act?”
“But in what way?”
“How do I know! The essential thing is to act! Moreover I do know certain facts. There must necessarily be means of neutralizing, at a given moment, the action of the closed flood-gates. There must be [[287]]sluices which let the water flow swiftly away. I must find them!”
Aurelie did not listen to him. She groaned: “I implore you not to leave me alone in this dreadful darkness! I’m afraid, Ralph.”
“No: since you are not afraid to die, you’re not afraid to live—to live two hours. Not more. The water cannot reach you for two hours. And I shall be here—I swear to you, Aurelie, that I shall be here, whatever happens, to tell you that you are saved—or to die with you!”
Little by little, pitilessly, he freed himself from her desperate arms. Then he bent over her and said passionately:
“Trust me, my beloved. You know that I have never failed in my efforts. The moment I have succeeded, I will let you know by a signal—I’ll whistle twice. But even when you feel the water chilling you, believe blindly in me!”