“Il Santo! What has become of him, Gaspare?”
“He will be there, Signorina.”
So Gaspare, too, held to the belief of the seamen of the Bay. He had confidence in the obedience of the sea, this sea that roared around them like a tyrant. Suddenly she had no doubt. It would be so. The saint would be untouched. The light would still be burning. She looked for it. And now she remembered her mother. She must tell her mother directly she saw it. But all was blackness still.
And the launch seemed weary, like a live thing whose strength is ebbing, who strains and pants and struggles gallantly, not losing heart but losing physical force. Surely it was going slower. She laid one hand upon the cabin roof as if in encouragement. Her heart was with the launch, as the seaman’s is with his boat when it resists, surely for his sake consciously, the assault of the great sea.
“Coraggio!”
She was murmuring the word. Gaspare looked at her. And the word was in his eyes as it should be in all eyes that look at youth. And the launch strove on.
“Coraggio! Coraggio!”
The spray was in her face. Her hair was wet with the rain. Her French frock—that was probably ruined! But she knew that she had never felt more happy. And now—it was like a miracle! Suddenly out of the darkness a second darkness shaped itself, a darkness that she knew—the island. And almost simultaneously there shone out a little steady light.
“Ecco il Santo!”
“Ecco! Ecco!”