The genial rays flowed over
them, drying their wet, clinging garments, filling their stiffened
frames with languorous warmth.
Finally the girl sighed and smiled. Half waking now, she thought she
was at home in her own bed. The sunlight always awakened her there.
She wondered if it was time for her maid to enter. She hoped not; it
was so comfortable, and she was, oh, so sleepy! She turned on her
side. Then suddenly she started. Certainly she was lying on nothing
that would remotely suggest a bed. Sleepily she tried to open her
eyes, but the long lashes were glued together by the heavy salt water.
Arousing still further, she rubbed them open. And then as a heaving,
littered deck, with patches of blue sea showing through the shattered
rail bore upon her vision, a realizing sense of the situation and the
tragic events leading to it came to her.
For a moment she lay still, shuddering. Her head still rested upon
Dan's arm. She knew it, but she was afraid to arise. Somehow that arm
seemed the only thing which assured her she was in a living world.
Even in the brilliant morning sunlight the vessel, soughing, creaking,
groaning, as it moved slouchily over the waters impressed her as the
shape of terror. From the deck little mist spirals arose like spirits
of the men who had deserted the ship.
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