mary did not see richard hand’s trip out in the buoy. she was busy ministering to the first man ashore, the sailor whom two of the lone cove crew had brought to[286] the house. one of the men hurried back to help haul the buoy; the other stayed and, aided by john, stripped the sailor of his wet clothing and got him into night clothes and a bathrobe. he was unconscious.

mary, arriving with a bottle of brandy, poured out a drink and they managed to get it down his throat as he revived.

he sat up and looked about him stupidly and pathetically. he was a big fellow with blond hair and blue eyes, a scandinavian, apparently. after he had swallowed a little more brandy they put him in one of the beds in the living room which mary had converted for hospital purposes. he did not appear to be frostbitten and, closing his eyes, he fell into a slumber that was not much lighter than the unconscious state in which he had reached the land.

mary stood for a moment regarding the first—and it might be the only—life wrested from the clutch of the sea. he was handsome in a way and evidently not very old. a mere, overgrown boy, she thought to herself, but he might not be so young as he looked with his light hair and fair skin, almost beardless. he came of a seafaring race, whether norwegian, swedish, or dane; he would not think very deeply of his adventure. she wondered for a moment what he thought about the sea, how he felt about it, how he would feel about it now; but she reflected that his escape would probably present itself to him as a piece of luck, nothing more, as something all[287] in the day’s—or the year’s—work—nothing romantic about it.