The ship was yawing again. Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them,
licking above Dan's red-gold hair and his back, but never touching the
girl. Then the swing of the vessel and the wind again; then the fire
and the torturing heat. Once Dan saw his grandfather's vessel burning
as he had often pictured it in boyhood, and he trembled horribly for a
second, but only for a second; then he became rigid and smiled at the
apparition. The girl had evidently fainted; she hung a dead weight
upon his arm. Again the wind drove the flames far out over the stern.
There came a time when the fight for life was waged mechanically, when
all sense of thought vanished, and the carrying on of the struggle came
down to mere animal instinct. At such times a brave man need not be
ashamed to die--the time has long elapsed when cravens perish. But the
very brave, the physically as well as mentally brave, fight on to the
end, instinctively. And so Dan fought. He knew that Virginia Howland
hung on his arm--but the fire had gone from his ken; he was fighting
something, that was all he knew, or cared, since it was for her. Once
the red sheet enveloped them for a flashing second, but the merciful
wind came to save. It could not last long, though. Dan's arm weakened
about the limp form of the girl.
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