That handshake almost cost them their lives, for the next moment the full breath of the storm caught them and wrenched furiously at their bodies.

Yet neither of them regretted the handclasp, for all its cost.

If they died now, it would be as brothers.
They had at least escaped from the greatest of all horrors, a lonely death.
It seemed as if the storm acknowledged the strength of their determination.

It fell away as suddenly as it had risen.

A heavy ground swell still ran, but without the wind to roughen the surface and sharpen the crests, the big timber rode safely through the sea.