It was a longer and heavier business to work her back again, with the wind right in our teeth, and freshening steadily as the evening wore on. Fortunately for us it had only blown fitfully, and without much weight in it till now. It was still “making up its mind,” as sailors say, whether it would blow or not. But as we were beaching her in a deep sandy cove it had finished apparently with indecision, and began to blow in earnest.
Just as we had landed, and Oswald was preparing to follow us, a terrific squall burst full upon the boat, which lay beam on to it. Relieved of her last weight, as Oswald stepped on shore, she yielded to the pressure, and, heeling over on her side, pinned him to the ground. In a moment the horror of it broke upon us. What could we do, the two of us, even if Ronald hadn’t been shorn of half his strength? It would have taken ten men to pull her over in the face of the gale that was blowing. And the tide was rising rapidly. It was idle to look for help. We had beached her in a quiet sequestered cove, used only by ourselves. But it was closer to Thorpe Hill than the regular landing stage, and, after a hard day’s work, saved us a tedious beat along the coast when the wind was blowing from its present quarter. The high land above us was private property, with no right of way, and on a day like this, for it was beginning to rain, would be lonely as a desert.
Our first thought was of the winch. We had had one fitted up under the cliff in order to save labour in launching and beaching the boat. But, even if it were possible, we had no time nor knowledge how to alter the gear so as to utilise the leverage for righting her. No doubt the incoming tide would help us later on, but its help, when it did come, would come too late. Yet to do anything was better than to do nothing. So we took the balers out of the boat, and, kneeling down beside Oswald, attempted the hopeless task of freeing him by scooping out the sand on either side, till he begged us to desist, as the boat only fell over more heavily, and imprisoned him still deeper in the yielding sand.
And all the time that we were working, Kingsley’s “cruel, crawling foam” beat persistently upon my brain, maddening me with its ghastly congruity. And yet “cruel and crawling” it was not. Quicker it could scarcely have been, and its quickest was (I saw) its kindliest. Already it was playing with the lad’s hair, though his mistress, careless of the risk she ran, knelt down beside him and supported his head in her arms.
“Pray for me,” he said.
She whispered the words in his ear, though if she had shouted them with all her strength they would not have reached us on the other side of the boat, where, with a hope that was hopeless now, we were straining ourselves to no purpose in the attempt to right her.
But Oswald was satisfied. A look of repose and even comfort settled upon his face before the last words came.
“Thank you,” he said, “you have made death easy for me. And you have done so at the risk of your own life. Tell them at home I was not afraid.”
She bent down and kissed his forehead.
“And now—cover my face.”