There was instant commotion. Some of the girls who were in the water came hurrying out, scrambling up the beach in a panic; others launched themselves into deep water with a reckless disregard for their own safety, and swam out to help in the rescue.
Dorothy, standing on the edge of the wall, and looking out over the water, saw an arm shoot up, then disappear. She saw Miss Mordaunt, the games-mistress, and Miss Ball, the mistress of the Fourth, making wild efforts to reach the place where Cissie Wray was in trouble; she saw the girls who were in the water crowding together, getting in the way of the rescuers, endangering themselves, and adding to the confusion. Acting on impulse, she sprang from the wall, then running down the steep beach, and tearing off her skirt as she ran, she kicked off her shoes, and running still, took to the water as lightly as a duck, going forward with long, even strokes that carried her swiftly on.
“Go back! go back!” she shouted to the small girls who were bobbing up and down in the water, anxious to help. “Get out of the deep as quickly as you can, and get ready to make a chain to pull us up.”
Chain-making for rescue was one of the most usual swimming exercises. Sometimes half the chain would be straggling up the beach, and the other half in deep water; then the last one of the chain would drop limp and passive, while the chain struggled shorewards with the helpless one in tow.
Dorothy’s quick wit had seen that the great hope of rescue lay in the chain. The tide was running in fast, and the beach at this point rose so steeply that a swimmer with a burden was most fearfully handicapped. Oh! a rescue in such a sea would be a task of magnitude, and she suddenly realized that Cissie must have been very far out. Miss Ball was nearest to the place where Dorothy had seen the arm flung up. She was swimming with desperate haste, but she was not saving her strength in the least possible way. She was not a strong swimmer, either, and even if she reached the little girl, she would not be able to do more than hold her up in the water.
Miss Mordaunt had been right away at the outer edge of the group. She had been helping the younger ones to get more confidence in their own powers; she had to see these headed for safety before she could come to the help of Miss Ball and Cissie, so she was behind Dorothy.
Miss Ball shot forward, gripped hold of Cissie by the bathing-dress, and was holding her fast, when poor, frantic Cissie, with a thin shriek of pure panic, seized Miss Ball in a frenzied grip, clinging with all her might, and choking the Fourth Form mistress by the tightness of her clutch.
Dorothy made a wild effort and shot forward. Would she ever cover the distance that separated her from the two who were in such dire peril? She almost reached them—she shot out an arm to grip Miss Ball, who was nearest; a great wave heaved up and swept the Fourth Form mistress farther to the left. Dorothy put out another spurt; she flung every ounce of strength she had into the effort; she summoned all her will power to her aid, and suddenly, just as she was feeling that she simply could not do any more, Cissie Wray was flung into reach of her groping fingers, and she had the little girl fast.
Cissie was still clinging with might and main to the neck of Miss Ball, who, strangled and helpless in that suffocating grip, was slowly beginning to sink.
Treading water to keep herself afloat, Dorothy hung on to Cissie’s bathing-dress with one hand, and with the other she wrenched the little girl’s hand from its frantic clasp of Miss Ball’s throat. Quite well she realized her own danger in doing this, but she trusted to her swiftness of movement to be able to elude Cissie’s clutching fingers. She had seized Cissie well by the back of the bathing-dress, and was keeping her at arm’s length. But the trouble now was with Miss Ball, who, having been so badly choked, could not regain the strength that had been squeezed out of her, and was being sucked down into the water.