He proved to be wrong, however, in more than one particular. It was a good half hour before they were able to get Captain Saulsby even the short distance down to the edge of the mill-stream. Although protesting loudly that he had suffered no harm from yesterday’s mishap and that such an adventure was nothing to an old sailor like himself, the Captain was, nevertheless, unable to hide the fact that he was thoroughly spent and ill. Even with a strong arm to help him on each side, he was hardly able to struggle along the path. His protests that there was nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all, became ever louder and more incoherent until it was plain to all three of his companions that he was rapidly growing lightheaded.
When they came to the causeway, moreover, they discovered a fact that Billy, in his ignorance of the ocean’s ways, had failed to count upon. The tide was at the wrong stage, and the water too deep over the stepping stones to permit of a safe passage across.
“What a nuisance,” exclaimed Billy, utterly exasperated both with the forces of nature and with himself, “how could I have been so stupid as to forget!”
“If we only hadn’t sent the launch back!” remarked the sailor. “But our orders were she was not to wait at all. I don’t understand myself what the whole thing is about, but I suppose the captain does.”
“We’ll have to go around by the road,” the other said, “but there’s one thing sure, the old man can’t make it that far.”
It was very plain that Captain Saulsby had dragged himself as far as he could, for he stood swaying and would have fallen. Between them the two sturdy bluejackets carried him up the beach and laid him down under a tree. He seemed to be only vaguely conscious of where he was, and lay there muttering and talking to himself.
“It was the feel of the blue water under me that kept me going,” he explained pathetically in a moment of being more himself; “once I get on land you find out what I am, a battered old derelict good for nothing but to make trouble.”
“Is there somewhere near where we can leave him?” one of the sailors asked. “It looks as though it might rain and he ought to be under cover. We can send you back some one to drive him home, but we had better not wait now; our orders were to hurry. Isn’t there a house near?”
“There’s the old mill,” Billy recollected suddenly; “that will keep us dry at least and we can wait there for some one to come for us. I don’t think it is too far to carry him.” Only the iron muscles trained in Uncle Sam’s navy could have managed such a huge, awkward burden as Captain Saulsby proved to be. He objected loudly and even struggled against being carried, so that all three of his friends were well worn out by the time they had deposited him in the big, cool, shadowy room that formed the first story of the mill. Billy went out on the steps to thank the men and to give them directions as to how to find the hotel.
“You follow the wood road until you come to the main highway,” he told them, “and then go straight down that until you come to the bridge. It’s pretty far, but you can’t lose the way.”