CHAPTER XVI
A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS
Lawford came up as the sloop swept by on her new tack, his smile as broad as ever. He blew loudly and then shouted:
"Going—-too—fast—for—me! Whoa! Back up a little, ladies, and let me climb aboard."
"Well, of all the crazy critters!" the "able seaman" declared. "Stand by with that boathook, Miss Lou, and see if you can harpoon him."
Louise swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to laugh too. To tell the truth, the accident to Lawford Tapp had frightened her dreadfully at the moment it occurred.
Betty Gallup put over the wheel and the Merry Andrew, still under propulsion of the bursting squall, flew about, almost on her heel. Louise, who was shielding her eyes from the flying spray under the sharp of her hand and watching the head and shoulders of Lawford as he plowed through the jumping waves with a great overhand stroke, suddenly shrieked aloud:
"Oh, Betty!"
"What's the matter? Land sakes!"
Both saw the peril threatening the swimmer. The light skiff at the end of the long painter whipped around when the line tautened. As Betty cried out in echo to Louise's wail, the gunnel of the skiff crashed down upon Lawford's head and shoulders.
"Oh! Oh! He's hurt!" cried Louise.
"He's drowned—dead!" ejaculated Betty Gallup. "Here, Miss Lou, you take the wheel——"
But the girl had no intention of letting the old woman go overboard.
Betty in her heavy boots would be wellnigh helpless in the choppy sea.
If it were possible to rescue Lawford Tapp she would do it herself.
The human mind is a wonderfully constituted—mechanism, may we call it? It receives and registers impressions that are seemingly incoordinate; then of a sudden each cog slips into place and the perfection of a belief, of an opinion, of a desire, even of a most momentous discovery, is attained.
Thus instantly Louise Grayling had a startling revelation, "Handle the boat yourself, Betty!" she commanded. "I am going to get him."
Her skirt was dropped, even as she spoke. She wore "sneaks" to-day instead of high boots, and she kicked them off without unlacing them. Then, poising on the rail for a moment, she dived overboard on a long slant.
She swam under the surface for some fathoms and coming up dashed the water from her eyes to stare about.
The black squall had passed. The sea dimpled in blue and green streaks as before. A few whitecaps only danced about the girl. Where Lawford had gone down——
A round, sleek object—like the head of a seal—bobbed in the agitated water. It was not ten yards away. Had she not been so near she must have overlooked it. He might have sunk again, going down forever, for it was plain the blow he had suffered had deprived Lawford of consciousness.
Louise wasted no breath in shouting, nor moments in looking back at
Betty and the sloop. All her life she had been confident in the water.
She had learned to ride a surfboard with her father like the natives in
Hawaii. A comparatively quiet sea like this held no terrors for Louise
Grayling.
She dived in a long curve like a jumping porpoise, and went down after the sinking man. In thirty seconds she had him by the hair, and then beat her way to the surface with her burden.
Lawford's face was dead white; his eyes open and staring. There was a cut upon the side of his head from which blood and water dribbled upon her shoulder as she held him high out of the sea.
There sounded the clash of oars in her ears. How Betty had lowered the jib, thrown over the anchor, and manned the skiff so quickly would always be a mystery to Louise. But the "able seaman" knew this coast as well, at least, as Lawford Tapp. They were just over a shoal, and there was safe anchorage for a small craft.
"Give him to me. Land sakes!" gasped Betty over her head. "I never see no city gal like you, Miss Lou."
Nor had Louise ever seen a woman with so much muscular strength and the knowledge of how to apply it as Betty displayed. She lifted Lawford out of the girl's arms and into the skiff with the dexterity of one trained in hauling in halibut, for Betty had spent her younger years on the Banks with her father.
Louise scrambled into the skiff without assistance. Betty was already at the oars and Louise took the injured head of the man in her lap. He began to struggle back to life again.
"I—I'm all right," he muttered. "Sorry made such a—a fool—of—myself."
"Hush up, you!" snapped Betty. "I'd ought to have seed to this skiff. Then you wouldn't have got battered like you did." A tear ran frankly down Betty's nose and dripped off its end. "If anything really bad had happened to you, Lawford, I'd a-never forgive myself. I thought you was a goner for sure."
"Thanks to you, I'm not, I guess, Betty," he said more cheerfully. He did not know who had jumped overboard to his rescue.
For some reason the girl was suddenly embarrassed by this fact.
The skiff reached the plunging sloop and Louise got inboard and aided
Betty to get Lawford over the rail. Then she slipped on her skirt.
Lawford slumped down in the cockpit, saying he was all right but looking all wrong.
"Going to get him back to Tapp Point just as quick as I can," declared the "able seaman" to Louise. "Doctor ought to see that cut."
"Oh, Betty!"
"Now, now, Miss Lou," murmured the old woman with the light of sudden comprehension in her eyes. "Don't take on now! You've been a brave gal so fur."
"And I will keep my courage," Louise said with tremulous smile.
"Go right over there an' hold his head, Miss Lou. Pet him up a leetle bit; 'twon't hurt a mite."
The vivid blush that dyed the girl's cheeks signaled the fact that Betty had guessed more of the truth than Louise cared to have her or anybody know. She shook her head negatively to the keen-eyed old woman; nevertheless she went forward, found one of Lawford's handkerchiefs and bound up his head. The cut did not seem very deep; yet the shock of the blow he had suffered certainly had dulled the young man's comprehension.
"Thank you—thank you," he muttered and laid his head down on his arms again.
Betty rounded the end of the Neck where the lighthouse stood. One of the lightkeepers was on the gallery just under the lamp chamber and had been watching them through his glasses. He waved a congratulatory hand as the Merry Andrew shot along, under the "able seaman's" skillful guidance.
"I'm goin' to put you ashore in the skiff right there by the store,
Miss Lou," Betty said.
"Shouldn't I get a doctor and send him over to the Point?"
"They've got a telephone there," Betty told her.
"I—I hope they'll take good care of him."
"They ought to," sniffed Betty. "I'll see to it he's all right, Miss
Lou, before I leave him."
"Thank you, Betty," returned the girl, too honest to make any further attempt to deny her deep interest in the man.
When the sail rattled down and Louise tossed over the anchor, Lawford roused a bit. "Sorry the trip turned out so rotten bad, Miss Grayling," he mumbled. "I—I don't feel just right yet."
Louise patted his shoulder. "You poor boy!" she said tenderly. "Don't mind about me. It's you we are worrying about. But I am sure you cannot be seriously injured. Betty will take you directly over to the Point and the folks there will get a doctor for you. Next time we'll have a much nicer fishing trip, Mr. Tapp. Good-bye."
He muttered his adieu and watched her get into the skiff after Betty and the baskets. The "able seaman" rowed quickly to the beach. The sharp eyes of Mr. Bane noted their arrival, and he strode over to the spot where the skiff came in, to help Louise out of the boat and bring the baskets ashore.
"You need a handy man, I see," the actor observed. "What a fine catch you have had—blackfish, snappers, and fluke, eh? I'll carry the baskets up to your uncle's store for you. Fine old man, your uncle, Miss Grayling. And what stories he can tell of his adventures—my word!"
"Come over to-night and tell me how he is, betty, won't you?" the girl whispered to the "able seaman" and the latter, nodding her comprehension, pulled back to the sloop. Neither of them saw that Lawford was watching the little group on shore and that when Bane and the girl turned toward the store the young man looked after them with gloomy visage.
The girl's replies to Bane's observation were most inconsequential. Her mind was upon Lawford and his condition. She was personally uncomfortable, too; for although the sun and wind had dried her hair and her blouse, beneath the dry skirt her clothing was wet.
As they came to the Shell Road the long, gray roadster Louise had seen before came down from town. L'Enfant Terrible was at the wheel while her two older sisters sat in the narrow seat behind. Cecile tossed a saucy word over her shoulder, indicating Louise and Bane, and her older sisters smiled superciliously upon the two pedestrians. Louise was too deeply occupied with thoughts of the injured man to note this by-play.