For how long he remained unconscious he was totally unable to gauge. When he opened his eyes he was aware that he felt numbed to the bone, except his right hand, from which the blood was flowing freely. In gripping the sharp rock that had proved his salvation he had gashed his palm in half a dozen places. He tried to move, but his limbs were powerless and incapable of responding to the dictates of his will.
It was still dark. The wind was howling through a clump of coco-palms, bending the supple crests almost to the ground. Spray, too, was hissing with almost clock-like regularity as the breakers dashed themselves against the shore.
Some time elapsed before the events that led to his almost helpless predicament dawned upon him. He recalled the struggle in the darkness, the agony of the grip of the undertow, and the nameless fear that his precious burden would be torn from his grasp. Then the last, almost automatic dash for land... and where was Hilda?
With a supreme effort he moved his benumbed arm, half-dreading that the limb was broken. To his mingled satisfaction and alarm his almost nerveless fingers touched the cold face and dank hair of the object of his search.
Was she dead? he wondered.
For some moments he contented himself by rubbing his own benumbed limbs, slowly at first, then warming to his task as the blood began to circulate through his veins. Then, half-rising, he crawled to Hilda's side. Her heart was still beating, though feebly.
Racking his brains to remember the instructions laid down for the restoration of those apparently drowned, and then puzzled whether to treat the case as that of a half-drowned person or one suffering from cold and exposure, he decided to act upon the latter supposition, and proceeded to chafe the girl's limp hands.
As he did so he became aware that dawn was breaking—breaking with the rapidity usual in tropical climes. In a few minutes it was light, and the ruddy orb of the sun appeared to shoot up in a cloudless sky above the eastern horizon.
How he blessed the rapidly increasing warmth as the sun mounted higher and higher! Warmth meant life. He cast about him for a suitable spot, open to the glorious rays yet sheltered from the still flying spindrift.
He found what he required in a grassy hollow, screened by palms from the worst of the wind yet exposed to the slanting rays of the sun, which were momentarily increasing in brilliance and strength.