Alice! Was he so eager for her to realise the new position that he must needs enforce the knowledge of it upon her in this fashion?
"I am glad Miss Woodward does not mind. I should."
"I am perfectly aware of that--you have not her philosophic acquiescence in the inevitable. It is a pity, for you fret yourself needlessly over people--who are not worth it."
Was he not worth it? The thought made her walk faster, until a sudden cry from behind made her companion pause and look back hastily.
"Good God! they'll be on the rocks," he cried, as, without an instant's delay, he dashed across the sward down to the shore, followed closely by Marjory, whose heart throbbed with sudden fear as she realised what had occurred. The boat which they had left safely in the backwater a minute before, was now racing down the stream with sails full set. How this had occurred was another question, which could not then be answered. Possibly Sam, proud of his new seamanship, had proposed a sail. Anyhow, there they were in the stream, and even without knowledge of that sunken shelf of rock half a mile further down the curve, over which the water rushed in a fall at this time of the tide, the young man sufficiently grasped the danger of the situation to be doing his best to lower the sail again. But the rope had kinked in the pulley, and the sudden discovery that he had forgotten to re-ship the rudder--which Paul had removed in order to bring the boat closer into shore--completed his consternation, rendering him absolutely helpless. All this Captain Macleod took in as he ran, and ere Marjory had reached him he had kicked off his boots and flung coat and waistcoat aside to free himself for the sharp, short struggle with the racing tide, in which lay his only chance of reaching the boat. Then he waded breast high in the slack water, and bided his time. It needed quick thought and quicker decision to seize the exact moment when, by one supreme effort, he could hope to succeed; and yet Marjory, watching with held breath, felt a wild rush of exultation, not of fear, as with one splendid stroke he shot far into the current. Swimming has always an effortless look, and the sweeping stream, carrying him down, remorselessly aided the illusion, so that not even Marjory, with her knowledge of the tide, guessed how nearly Paul Macleod's strength was spent as his hand touched the gunwale. But touch it he did, and the next moment, with Sam's help, he was aboard and busy at the sail, while Alice Woodward, deeming the danger over, began to cry helplessly, and even Marjory breathed again. Only for a moment, however; the next, though the sail was down, she realised that the boat was still in the current, and that Paul was vainly trying to tear up a thwart. The rudder! the rudder must have gone adrift in Sam's clumsy efforts to ship it!
Then they were no better off than before--nay, worse! since they were nearer those unseen rocks, and he--he was in danger now.
What was to be done? The thought was agonising as, scarcely knowing why, she kept abreast of the drifting boat, stumbling over the boulders, slipping on the seaweed, unable to see, to think, to do anything save listen to the ominously rising roar of the water which just beyond the turn fell in a regular cascade over that black jagged shelf of rock.
Ah, those helpless children! and Paul! She must do something--try to do something. And then on a sudden it came to her, as such things do come, as if they had all been settled beforehand clear and connected. At the last spit of land, not fifty yards above the fall, a streak of sand bank, capped by a pile of boulders, jutted out. If she could cross the dip and reach them! The herons used to sit there till well on to half-tide, and once she and Will had found oysters. The trivial thoughts came, as they will come in times of stress, flashing through the brain without obscuring it. Even as she thought them, her mind was busy over the one certainty, that somehow she must give help! By cutting across the next grassy curve she would be there in time. They might think she was deserting them. What then? If she could succeed even so far, he would know that it was not so--he would understand that she meant to be nearer--nearer.
He did; and a great glow of pride in her pluck came to him, when, as the boat swept round the curve, he saw her floundering, half swimming towards the boulders, and at the sight bent quickly for a coil of rope. But she had not thought of that--her one impulse having been to get nearer.
And now she is as far as she can go. Sheer at her feet, sliding among the stones, is the stream--below her is the roar and rush of the fall, save to her left, where it shelves to an eddy--above her is the boat drifting, drifting, more slowly now, for the shelf of rock backs the water a little. Then for the first time she realises what is to be done, for there is Paul at the bows with the coil poised in his hand.