‘Can you come to me, Cutbill?’ I cried.
‘I don’t like to let go of the lady, sir,’ he answered.
‘Which lady?’ I shouted.
‘Miss Jennings.’
‘Is she alive, Cutbill?’
‘Ay, sir.’
By this time my sight was growing used to the profound blackness. The clouds of pallid foam along the margin of the island flung a sort of shadow of ghastly illumination into the atmosphere, and I fancied I could see the blotch the figure of Cutbill made to the right of me on the level on which I stood. I forthwith dropped on my knees again and cautiously advanced, then more plainly distinguished him, and in a few minutes was at his side. It was the shadowy group, the outlines barely determinable by my sight, even when I was close to, of the big figure of the sailor seated with the girl supported on his arm. I put my lips close to the faint glimmer of her face, and cried ‘Laura, dearest, how is it with you? Would God it had been my hand that had had the saving of you!’
She answered faintly, ‘Take me; let me rest on you?’
I put my arm round her and brought her head to my breast and so held her to me. Soaked as we were to the skin like drowned rats, the heat floating up out of the body of volcanic stuff on which we lay prevented us from feeling the least chill from the pouring of the wind through our streaming clothes.
‘Oh, my God, Laura!’ I cried, ‘I feared you were gone for ever when I lost my hold of you.’