With the rope, he secured the woman and child to the life-buoy, and scarcely had he done so, when the whole mass to which they clung heaved over and sank beneath the waves. The three sank with it, and for a moment it seemed to the alarmed watchers as if all were lost. But the next moment the life-buoy bore them up, and, seizing the rope, Joe began to swim back, towing the other two.
Now the fishermen on the shore could help, and with a will they drew in the rope, till, beaten and bruised by the waves, and utterly exhausted, the shipwrecked ones were brought to shore.
"Surely they are dead?" said Mr. Hollys, as he looked at the white and unconscious forms which the men had drawn out of the waves.
"I think not, sir," said one of the fishermen. "They're not so far gone but what they can be brought back, I reckon. I've seen folks look worse than that, and yet recover."
"They had better be carried to my house," said Mr. Hollys. "Everything will be in readiness there."
And with compassionate tenderness the rough fishermen lifted the slight form of the child, and the scarcely heavier one of her mother, and bore them along the beach, and up the short ascent to Egloshayle House. Here prompt measures were taken to restore them to animation. The child was the first to recover consciousness. She came round quickly, and, when wrapped in warm blankets, and laid in Beryl's bed, seemed little the worse for her misadventure, save that she was frightened, and cried piteously for her mother.
The mother's case was more serious, and it was long ere she showed the least sign of life. When at length she was restored to consciousness, her pulse was so feeble, and her exhaustion so extreme, that the doctor, whose help Mr. Hollys had summoned, feared that she might be unable to rally from the effects of the shock she had sustained.
Whilst the others were engaged in attending to the poor woman, Beryl sat beside the child and tried to soothe her with loving words and caresses. She was a pretty child, with large, dark eyes, and short, black curly hair, much smaller, and probably younger than Beryl. She seemed dreadfully frightened at finding herself in a strange place, and Beryl's words and kisses failed to soothe her.
"I want mamma," she sobbed. And when told that her mother was too ill to come to her, she said, "Then father will do. Where is father? Why doesn't he come to me? Mamma is often ill, I know, but father never is."
In despair, Beryl went downstairs and sought her father. She found him in the dining-room talking to the doctor.