There was a minute's silence, and then Ratsey spoke very softly:
'There was none landed with you; there was no soul saved from that ship
alive save you.'
His words fell, one by one, upon my ear as if they were drops of molten
lead. 'It is not true,' I cried; 'he pulled me up the beach himself, and
it was he that pushed me forward to the rope.'
'Ay, he saved thee, and then the under-tow got hold of him and swept him
down under the curl. I could not see his face, but might have known there
never was a man, save Elzevir, could fight the surf on Moonfleet beach
like that. Yet had we known 'twas he, we could have done no more, for
many risked their lives last night to save you both. We could have done
no more.' Then I gave a great groan for utter anguish, to think that he
had given up the safety he had won for himself, and laid down his life,
there on the beach, for me; to think that he had died on the threshold of
his home; that I should never get a kind look from him again, nor ever
hear his kindly voice.
It is wearisome to others to talk of deep grief, and beside that no
words, even of the wisest man, can ever set it forth, nor even if we were
able could our memory bear to tell it. So I shall not speak more of that
terrible blow, only to say that sorrow, so far from casting my body down,
as one might have expected, gave it strength, and I rose up from the
mattress where I had been lying.
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