Mr. Raleigh tore his
eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance
on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with
intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with
hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting
prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat
at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into
file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if
possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over
to Ursule.
The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a
portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and
rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve
with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and
unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else
broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of
breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place
was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to
leave below the stings of the blistering deck.
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