CHAPTER XI—THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE
It was growing dark down there beneath the waves. The golden sunlight had turned to a bluish gloom that lay dense beneath the boy and girl, who were slowly sinking into that mysterious region.
Those dark depths were suggestive of rest and peace. They seemed most inviting and alluring to the lad who was wearied and exhausted by his struggles to save the girl who was so dear to him.
Frank felt like ceasing to struggle—like giving over all effort and floating gently down into those cool depths, where he could rest.
Inza was with him, and they would rest down there together, still locked in each other’s arms.
To his mind came a picture of them as they would look in the cool blue shadows, undisturbed by anything that was occurring in all the wide, wide world. He saw their pale faces and their closed eyes, and he fancied Inza’s dark hair floating gently at the soft throb of the ocean. Oh, it was sweet as a dream!
Then he seemed to see the fishes that would come to look at them with wonder. He saw the fishes swimming about, darting over them and playing around the spot where they rested.
Then came another and a horrible thought.
The fishes would nibble at their flesh—would feast off their bodies. Inza’s beautiful face would be disfigured.
It was that thought that brought him to himself.
With a last mad burst of strength he broke the girl’s hold, and then they went mounting toward the surface.
Up, up, up from the dark blue shadows, which now seemed filled with horrible shapes, they mounted. Out from those shadows reached long, crooked arms with hands that tried to clutch them and drag them down again.
For the first time in his life Frank felt like shrieking with fear. A great horror was on him, and it made him frantic.
He saw bubble eyes that peered and glared at him from all sides, and shapeless forms hovered all around.
With all his strength he strove to reach the surface.
Up from the blue depths into the yellow sunlight he mounted, still clinging to the girl. Up from the yellow sunlight till their heads arose above the waves with a sudden splurge.
Frank coughed and strangled, ejecting salt water from his mouth.
He held the helpless, unstruggling girl in his arms, but he gave her little attention till he had raised not a little of the salt water that seemed to have gone down his throat.
Then Frank turned on his back, with the head of the girl resting on his breast and shoulder, and floated thus.
Frank had always been a marvelous swimmer, and he could float like a cork. Now he sought to rest on the surface of the swells till he could recover enough strength to swim.
The surface of the ocean was rolling gently in huge billows, which lifted and lowered them with a soothing motion and seemed to be sweeping them farther and farther from the shore.
But Frank felt a thrill of joy. He had reached Inza at last by a mighty struggle, and he was certain he would be able to save her, now he had broken her hold and escaped from the fascination of the blue depths beneath.
The sun shone down on the heaving sea as it always seems to shine along the coast of Southern California. The sky was blue and clear. A white-winged gull soared above them, having shot upward from the water as they reached the surface.
Frank watched that gull, and it seemed to fascinate him. It looked so white and pure and gentle as it hung there with outspread wings, wheeling slowly, and mounting higher and higher.
Somehow it seemed to Frank that the white bird had arisen from the head of the girl as it appeared above the water.
It was as if her pure white soul had been released and was soaring above them, pausing to look back lingeringly and pityingly before taking its flight to heaven.
Frank could see several figures running along the beach toward the cove where boats were to be found, and he knew some of the fellows were hastening to come to his assistance.
He looked at the face of the girl he had saved. It was quite pale, but a tinge of color began to show in her cheeks. All her curls were gone, and her light, fluffy hair was watersoaked; but still she was exceedingly pretty in a cool, icy way. To Frank at that moment, she seemed far prettier than when he had first met her.
And Merry’s heart was so overflowing with joy at the knowledge of having saved her that he kissed her repeatedly.
Suddenly Inza’s blue eyes opened and she looked at him in a dazed and bewildered manner.
Something like a faint smile fluttered across her face, and more color came to her cheeks.
“Where—where—what——” she vaguely began.
“Don’t be excited, dearest,” urged Frank. “If you get excited and struggle, I may not be able to save you. If you keep still, I may be able to keep our heads above the surface till a boat reaches us.”
He was treading water as he spoke.
The girl seemed too weak to make much of a struggle, and he was relieved to see that she lay quite still.
“Oh, I thought I was drowning—I was sure!” she said, presently. “I was frantic, and then all my senses left me.”
“It was a good thing they did, for you did not swallow much water while you were beneath the surface.”
“Then I did go under?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it—I knew I would.”
He felt her trembling in his grasp, and he quickly said:
“You are all right now.”
“Oh, but I must get up—up out of this water! I am so far down in it! Lift me up farther!”
“No!” he said, sternly; “you must remain as far down in the water as possible, for I shall not be able to save you if you don’t. Try to lie on your back, and tip your head far back. In that way you might float alone, and you would be all right as long as your nose remained above the surface so you could breathe. The trouble always is with those who drown in water like this that they try to climb up out of the water, instead of sinking as far down in it as possible, and keeping perfectly still, and their efforts send them under the surface.”
She understood him, and she murmured:
“Hold fast to me, and I will trust everything to you. You are such a brave and noble fellow!”
Inza suddenly remembered that Effie Random had been in the water, too, and she excitedly asked:
“Where is Effie now? Did I—did I do it?”
“Do what?”
“Drown her. She said I would drown both of us if I did not keep still, but every time I kept still a moment the water went over us, and that made me frantic. Oh, I do hope she did not drown! She is such a splendid girl, and I think so much of her!”
“She is all right,” assured Frank. “Mr. Hodge aided her in swimming to the shore.”
The calmness with which he talked to the girl seemed to give her confidence in his power to save her, and she trusted him completely.
Farther and farther from the shore they were carried.
Soon Frank saw a boat put out and pull toward them.
He felt that the boat was coming none too soon, for he had been weakened by his immersion beneath the surface, and he found that the effort of keeping upon the surface and holding the girl up was telling on him, despite his wonderful power of endurance.
Already he had begun to fear that he would give out, but the girl suspected nothing of the sort, for he seemed calm and confident.
“I shall owe you my life, Frank,” she said.
“We will talk of that later,” said Frank, by way of saying something in an unconcerned manner, although it seemed that the effort to speak deprived him of strength.
He looked longingly toward the boat. Two pairs of oars were being used, and the rowers were making the small craft jump with each stroke. The oars flashed in the sunshine when the wet blades came up dripping, and the bodies of the rowers swayed and bent. In the stern somebody waved a cap at Frank and uttered a shout of encouragement.
“Hurry! hurry! hurry!”
It was with the greatest difficulty that Merriwell kept from uttering the words in a wild cry that would have betrayed his failing strength. He choked it back, however, and smiled encouragingly at Inza.
“They are coming,” he said. “In a few minutes we’ll be in a boat and quite safe.”
“I don’t care,” she returned, in a significant manner. “They need not hurry.”
“If she only knew!” thought Frank.
Once he went down, and the water filled his nostrils so that he strangled a little. Inza gave a cry of alarm, and, fearing she would get excited and struggle, he forced a short laugh.
Nearer and nearer came the boat. He could hear the rump-thump, rump-thump of the oars in the rowlocks.
“Howld on, Frankie, me b’y!” came the cheery call of Barney Mulloy. “We’ll be wid yez in a minute.”
Rump-thump, rump-thump—would the boat never reach them?
How heavy Inza was! And it seemed that a great weight was dragging at Frank’s feet—a weight he could not cast off.
“Hurry, Barney—hurry!” he tried to cry; but the words died in a hoarse gasp in his throat, causing the girl to turn her head to look at him.
“What is the matter?” she asked, in sudden alarm.
“Nothing,” he declared, faintly—“nothing at all.”
“Oh, I know there is! You are giving out!”
Then he saw she was liable to grasp him about the neck, which would be sure to sink them both, in which case he was certain they would never rise again.
“Don’t do it—if you wish to live, Inza,” he pleaded. “I can hold you a little longer if you do not touch me; but we shall go down if you grasp me.”
She was filled with fear, but something in his words and manner caused her to obey him fully.
Suddenly there was a wild shout of alarm from the boat, and Frank saw Barney making frantic gestures, while he urged the rowers to greater exertions.
Merriwell wondered what it meant. He saw Barney swing his arm and point away toward the channel.
As they arose to the crest of a swell, Frank saw something that sent his heart into his throat.
At a distance the sharp back fin of a shark cut the crest of the water for a single instant and then disappeared.
A shark was coming!
“What—what is it?” asked Inza, who had been startled by Barney’s cries. “Why are they shouting thus?”
“They are doing it to encourage us,” said Frank, believing he was fully justified in the falsehood.
“You are sure?”
“Why, of course!”
Rump-thump, rump-thump went the oars! jump, jump plunged the boat as it sped to the rescue.
The rowers were straining every nerve. They were Bruce Browning and Ephraim Gallup, and for once in his life, at least, the big collegian was doing his very utmost. Nothing but an effort to save his own life or that of Frank could have made him work thus.
It seemed that the shark was approaching with the speed of an express train. Fortunately the boat was far nearer, and so it came up first.
Even as the boat shot alongside the youth and maiden, with Bruce and Ephraim backing water to check its headway, there was a flash of a dark body in the water, a flashlike turn, the showing of a white belly, and Barney had dragged Inza into the boat just in time.
Yes, he had dragged Inza in; but Frank—where was he?
He had disappeared!