“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! and it’s getting towards night! Row faster; what is the matter with you?” (This to the Irishman.) “Eve, wait; how far out is he?”
“It’s very calm,” Eve answered.
“But in the dark we can never find him,” wailed the mother, in a broken voice.
Eve made swift, tireless strokes. The Irishman could not keep up with her.
It was growing towards night, as Cicely had said; the days were shorter now; clouds were gathering too, though the air and water remained strangely still; the night would be dark.
“Your arms are like willow twigs, you have no strength,” said Cicely to the Irishman. “Hurry!”
The man had plenty of strength, and was exerting every atom of it. Still Eve kept ahead of him. “Oh, Jack!” she said to herself, “let me be in time!” It was her brother to whom she was appealing.
She reached the spot where she had left Porley; but there was no Porley there. Without stopping, she paddled on eastward; Cicely’s canoe was now some distance behind. Fifteen minutes more and she saw Porley, she rowed in rapidly. “Where is he?”