“He’d never gather. We must have him ready, and I can’t explain here. Don’t drop the rope for a moment while I’m gone.”
“All right. But why not have a pull first, to see if it’ll come free without?”
“Mighty! Not for the world! It’s been rotting in the water: supposing it snapped? There’ll hardly be a strain when the tide lifts the thing, and gets under the seat of the old girl—you believe me. Did you see her name?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s The Good Hope. Hurrah!”—and he scuttled from me, and the next moment was squattering through the water of the little strait. I watched his chestnut ball of a head lovingly as it drew a line across the channel; and I danced with excitement again to see his streaming shoulders emerge presently, and Joshua, as near wrought-up as I, run out knee-deep to help him ashore, and support him—as if he needed support—and kneel to wring out his clothes, while the faint gabble of their voices came to me. And then I turned to look seawards once more, and, behold! the comb of a little wave struck the spar-end, and seethed up and over it, and the sight made my heart flutter.
“Harry!” I screeched; and gripped the rope as if I feared some unnamable wickedness were seeking to snatch it out of my hands. I did not dare to turn again; but watched the hurrying tide fascinated; and, almost before I knew it, Harry was at my side.
“Lord, Dicky!” he whispered, his eyes glistening; “it comes, don’t it! Don’t let go! We mustn’t give it a chance.”
If it had only answered to our thoughts! How slow it crawled, without haste or flurry, sometimes seeming to drop dormant as if to take us off our guard. Presently, what with the strain and our shivering, we were fain to squat gingerly upon the sand, and grip, and watch, setting our chattering teeth. What if our expectations were to be cruelly baffled after all! What if the spar were anchored by some unexpected unseen grapnel to the bank! I turned sick at the thought. The water by now lipped along it, covering some three feet of its end. And still, to any gentle test of pulling it responded nothing.
Suddenly, eccentric as always in its motions, the tide bowled a succession of heavier wavelets shorewards. The first found us sitting, the rope taut between us and the spar, and left us sprawling backwards in a puddle of water. I thought the mere wash of it had upset us, till, in the midst of my spluttering and clutching to recover purchase, I heard my friend sing out—
“Get up! Hold on! Dick! O, come, come!”