He knelt down there in
the darkness, with his face towards the Race where Nance was battling
with the hungry black waters, and he prayed for her safety as he had
never prayed for anything in his life before.
"_God keep her! God keep her! God keep her--and bring her safe to land!
O God, keep her, keep her, keep her, and bring her safe to land!_"
It was a monotonous little prayer, but all his heart was in it, and that
is all that makes a prayer avail. And when at last, from sheer
weariness, he sank down on to his heels in science, gazing earnestly out
into the blackness of the night, his heart prayed on though his lips no
longer moved.
Could anything have happened to her? Could the black waters have
swallowed her?
Anything might have happened to her. The waters might have swallowed
her, as they had Bernel.
The thoughts would surge up behind his prayer, but he prayed them
down--again and again--and clung to his prayer and his hope.
It seemed hours since they parted, since his last glimpse of her as the
black waters swallowed the slim white figure, and seemed to laugh
scornfully at its smallness and weakness.
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