She looked me steadily in the face, as if trying to read my meaning in my eyes. And then her own eyes fell before mine. “Yes, anything,” she said, and the word came to me like an echo of the question I had asked her, “anything that friend may claim and I can give.”
It may be that her answer determined me though I think I should have tried it, even without the incentive she had given. It was intolerable to see the poor brute drowning before our eyes without an effort being made to save him, especially when he had faced the danger so bravely, while he had watched us rescuing the crew and felt there was still a chance for him of life. Only, if it was to be done at all, I saw it must be quickly done. Each sea as it came in was higher than the last, and a seam that had opened in her side towards us showed us that the ship was going fast.
My only chance, I saw, was to follow a spent wave and gain the deck if possible before the next one broke on her. It was all in my favour that she lay broadside to the shore, for her bulk acted as a breakwater against the sea, making it fairly calm water on the side of her that faced us. This would save me, I saw, from the worst danger of all, that of being carried out to sea by the retreating wave, though it brought with it another and almost graver peril in the risk that I might be caught and crushed against her side by the force of its retreat.
In any case now, if ever, my muscular training must stand me in good stead. First of all I wound a rope about me, leaving the shore-end of it in the hands of the coastguards, as I relied on their help to ensure my safety in case I should be overpowered by the rush of the retiring wave. Then I watched and waited my time while one, two, three seas broke over her; but none of them retreated far enough to serve my purpose. The fourth was the heaviest of all, and when it had spent itself, retreated further in proportion. Seizing the opportunity, I dashed through the lake of foam that lay between us and the wreck, and, grasping a rope that hung adrift over her side, and which I had long marked as my one hope on the chance of its being well secured at the further end, I swung myself by means of it up and on to the deck.
Only just in time; for as I landed on the deck a plank broke loose at my feet, through which I saw that her whole side seawards was gone, and that the cargo had nearly all washed out of her. The next blow, I saw, would finish her. So, loosing the dog and dropping him over the side, I hung for a moment while the wave surged round me before I lowered myself. And on the calm that followed the wave’s retreat the watchers drew me to the shore. And then, with a crash that echoed high above the storm, she parted amidships, and the sea poured in volumes through the rent in the severed hull.
I walked straight to the place where Marion was sitting with the dog at her feet.
A word of thanks—no more. But it satisfied me, for a light had sprung into her eyes that told me I had won her love.
CHAPTER IX
Peggy had come to my study in sore dismay.
There was to be a break and interlude, it seemed, in the monotony of our household arrangements, which, for myself, I was inclined to welcome. Peggy, however, regarded it with extreme displeasure, not unmixed with anxiety.