The eye of Charles ranged along the shore to the spot where he had said good-bye to Sisily not so very long ago, then returned to rest doubtingly on Thalassa.

The old man stood with his hand resting on a giant rock, his dark eyes fixed on the rim of the waste of grey water where a weak declining sun hung irresolutely, as though fearing the inevitable plunge.
"I'd a' given my right arm to have saved her from this," Charles heard him mutter.
Charles found himself looking down at Thalassa's brown muscular arm, corded with veins, stretched out on the rock by which he stood.

It was as though it had been bared for his inspection, which was not, indeed, the case.

If that arm could save Sisily, it was at her service.

But what was the good of that?
What was the good of his own efforts to help her?
Charles had a suffocating feeling of the futility of human effort when opposed by the malignity of Fate.