"
"I feel in my bones that he is not dead, and that Angela will find
him."
We pressed on, unwilling to be outstripped by a woman, but sensible
that we were running ourselves to a standstill. The fog was thicker
near the water's edge, and Angela's figure loomed through the mist
like that of a wraith, but we still heard her piteous cry: "Jim--Jim!"
We were nearly spent when we overtook her. She had stopped where the
foam from the breakers lay thick upon the sand.
"Listen!" she said.
We heard nothing but our thumping hearts and the raucous note of some
sea-bird.
"He answered me!" she asserted with conviction. "There!"
Certainly my ears caught a faint cry to the left. We ran on,
forgetting our bruises. Again Angela called, and out of the mist
beyond the breakers came an answering voice. We shouted back and
plunged into the surf. Angela knelt down upon the sand.
Afterwards we admitted that Angela had saved his life, although Jim
could not have fought his way through the breakers without our help.
Indeed, when we got him ashore, I made certain that he was dead. Had
Angela's instinct or intuition failed, had she hesitated for a few
minutes, Jim would have drowned within a few hundred yards of the spot
where the balloon struck.
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