But, even as I turned to slip away, I heard a sound from across the water that seemed to make my heart, for a second, stop its beating.
It was a choking shout for help.
“Nancy!—Here!—Here!”
Then that dark head disappeared under the water.
It couldn’t possibly have been for as long as it seemed. No!
People can’t hold their breath for as long. Then it was up again. The swimmer had flung himself on his back and was floating. And I—without actually realizing what I had been doing, I must have cast off my wrap again, have splashed through the creamy surf of the first waves into the smoother jade-green depths beyond, for I found myself swimming, striking out, out—from the shore....
Still I didn’t know how I’d started—or why. Except that here was a human being in trouble whom, somehow or other, I had to help. I didn’t think about who it was. It wasn’t because of that broken shout of “Nancy!” I’m sure. No; I am sure that, just then, no thought of saving Still Waters was in my mind. It was just another human being who had called to me; and towards whom I swam so desperately, making, in my hurry, such a splashing over each stroke that it seemed to me endless before I came up to where he floated on his back.
Automatically I remembered something our swimming-instructor had drilled into us at school. I found myself telling myself that it was dangerous—dangerous to get within reach of a drowning person’s hands. They’d grip you, and you’d both go under.
“Keep behind him,” I was telling myself. “Keep behind him!”
But there was no need for me to trouble about avoiding his clutch. When he spoke, I realized that he, in his danger, was keeping his head far better than I was. He was calm.