He lifted his companion over it and made his way to the side of
the steamer. Others had discovered this road to safety and he had to
fight for his foothold amid the waves that now washed over his feet.
The men on the stranger vessel were sawing off the broken spar which
was entangled under the steamer's upper deck, lest their craft should
be dragged down by the sinking boat. He urged Ninitta forward, swinging
her by main force up into the tangled rigging.
"No, no," she cried, endeavoring to throw herself back. "I do not want
to go. It will be better for Nino."
The sublimity of her self-sacrifice smote him like a lash. He could not
stop to argue, but he forced her forward, and one of the men above,
feeling himself in safety, caught her by the arm to drag her up. But at
that instant the spar, cut nearly through, broke with a sharp crack
like the sound of a gun. The end fell, and with it the wretched woman
was carried down. She shrieked as she went, the water cutting short her
cry of mortal anguish. Fenton saw her face an instant, and then in the
fog and the darkness the lapping water closed over her.
An awful sickening shudder ran through him, a fear too great to be
resisted. There rose from his heart a despairing prayer; and the
unbeliever has sounded the depth of agony when he calls upon God.
At that instant a beam loosened from the upper deck, dragged downward
by the ropes of the falling bowsprit, fell with a crash, dashing him
downward into the gulf below.
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