"Into the breakers, where we shall be lost," she answered calmly. "Give
up paddling, it is of no use, and try to take off your coat. I have
loosened my skirt. Perhaps we can swim ashore."
He thought to himself that in the dark and breakers such an event was
not probable, but he said nothing, and addressed himself to the task
of getting rid of his coat and waistcoat--no easy one in that confined
space. Meanwhile the canoe was whirling round and round like a walnut
shell upon a flooded gutter. For some distance before the waves broke
upon the reef and rocks they swept in towards them with a steady
foamless swell. On reaching the shallows, however, they pushed their
white shoulders high into the air, curved up and fell in thunder on the
reef.
The canoe rode towards the breakers, sucked upon its course by a
swelling sea.
"Good-bye," called Geoffrey to Beatrice, as stretching out his wet hand
he found her own and took it, for companionship makes death a little
easier.
"Good-bye," she cried, clinging to his hand. "Oh, why did I bring you
into this?"
For in their last extremity this woman thought rather of her companion
in peril than of herself.
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