"You all!" Even in that moment Roger said to himself that "all" meant Virginia. Dalahaide was thinking of her. He would rather die than she should be punished for this bold attempt to break the law. But aloud Roger cried out that he would go back with Maxime or he would not go back at all, and cheering the other, with death in his own heart, he struggled along, half swimming, half wading, but always moving on, how he hardly knew. Then at last he saw a dark head, and a face, white in the moonlight, floating seemingly on the reedy surface of the lagoon, like a water lotus on its stem.
Roger grasped a handful of slippery stems and held out a strong left hand to the wounded man.
"Take hold, and I'll pull you out," he said.
The two hands met, one thin and white with a prison pallor, the other brown and muscular and dependable. They joined, and Roger held on to the bunch of slippery stems so hard that they cut into his fingers. Once he thought they were yielding, but at that instant Dalahaide was lifted out of the mud in which he had sunk. Roger caught him under the arm and held him up. Scrambling, rustling, pushing, sinking, rising, spitting out salt, brackish water, they struggled back toward the launch.
There it was, waiting, Trent crouching down, scarcely breathing in his agony of impatience. They saw him, and at the same time their heads came into sight for him, among the tall, dark spears of the rushes. In another moment George in the launch and Roger in the water were pulling and pushing Maxime, half fainting now, up over the side of the swaying boat.
As he tumbled in, limply, Roger saw a dark stain on the wet, gray convict jacket. It was black in the moonlight, but Roger knew it would be red by day. The wound in his back had broken out again, as he had thought; even if they saved him now, it might only be to die. It was the cold Voice that said this; and Roger shuddered, yet half his nature welcomed the suggestion. "I've done what I could, let him die," was the answer that came. Quickly the little launch began to back out from the entanglement of the rushes, and as soon as there was room George turned her and sent her out like an arrow from the lagoon to deeper, clearer water. Beyond a certain point of rock the Bella Cuba should lie by this time, and once on board her all might yet be well, for she could easily show her heels to anything that walked the sea in these waters.
They headed straight for the place where they hoped to find the yacht waiting, and with an exclamation Trent pointed to the sky, across which floated a black, gauzy scarf of smoke.
"Ripping old chap, Captain Gorst," chuckled George. "That's his signal. Trust him to be where he's wanted on time and a bit before."
But Roger was silent. There was a thought in his mind with which he could not darken George's mood by speaking out. Sufficient for the moment was the evil thereof.
They were close to the jutting rock now, and it seemed within ten minutes of safety. But something shot into sight round the point, something big, and black, and swift, with a gleam of fiery eyes and a belching stream of smoke streaked with fire.