And there, upon the sands, dangerously near to the water’s edge, lay the form of Judith Riordan. The life-preserver was still around her waist, but she lay flat upon her back, with her feet and hands raised, kicking and fighting the air, and her voice lifted and howling dismally. And with good reason; for she seemed unable to get up and run away from the spot, and the tide was coming in rapidly, and with every advancing wave threatening to overwhelm and drown her.
Miss Conyers hurried to her side and knelt down, exclaiming eagerly:
“Oh, Judith! Judith Riordan! Thanks to Heaven that you are saved!”
“Yis, thanks to Hivin, and small thanks to any of yez, laving me here be meself to be drowned entirely. And where are the lave of yez, at all, at all?” demanded the Irish woman, crossly.
“The rest of us? Oh, Judith, I don’t know. You are the first one that I have seen! Oh, Judith! I fear—I greatly fear—that all the others have——”
A huge wave came rolling and roaring onward, breaking at their feet and showering them with spray.
“Ah, bad luck till ye thin, why don’t you drag me out of this, itself? Sure the next one will carry me off entirely!” screamed Judith.
“Oh! Judith, poor girl, can’t you help yourself at all? Are you so badly hurt as all that?” inquired Miss Conyers, as she took hold of the woman’s shoulders, and putting all her strength to the effort, slowly and laboriously dragged her a few feet from the water’s edge and let her down a moment, while she, Britomarte, stopped to breathe and recover.
“Am I hurt so bad as that? ye ask me. Ye betther believe that same! Sure and I’m thinking ivery bone in me body is broke, so I do! Ah, bedad, here come another say. Sure if I’d been left where I was, it would have took me off entirely. Och! drag me further out iv this——”
Even while she spoke, the advancing wave broke, and tumbled down, a shattered avalanche of water, at their feet, covering them with a shower of spray.