The men jumped into the boat and pushed off. The little bundle of flannel and serge that held Dickie rolled quite comfortably to the bottom of the boat; but Susie's mother held two frozen feet in her warm hands and said nothing. Words did not come easily.
Presently Susie spoke again in that strained whisper. "Mother, when I went to sleep I dreamt a ferryman came for us, and his boat was close to the shore, and we were stepping in when you called me back. I knew your voice, and you said 'Susie' quite plainly. I wouldn't go, and I wouldn't let him take Dick! I screamed and held him tight, and the ferryman said we must pay him, all the same; and then you gave him two pennies, and he went away."
"Susie, I did call. In my heart I have called all night."
"Yes, I know," said Susie. "When I woke and saw the sailor, I thought it was the ferryman."
"I had paid," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
"Oh, I knew you would," said Susie.
Mrs. Beauchamp took the rug that Mr. Amherst threw to her, and folded it close and warm about Susie's wet locks and damp body; and presently the difficult, sobbing breaths grew quieter, but her mother knew that she was not asleep by the fierce pressure of her fingers.
The day was breaking as the boat was beached, and a dozen willing hands pulled her high and dry. The sea-birds were awake, fluttering about the head of the island; the ebbing tide had left the rocks very black and bare.
When they set Susie on her feet she was too stiff to stand alone, and never for one moment did she loose her hold of her mother's dress. It was the Royal Navy that finally took her into wonderfully tender keeping, and carried her up the steps and along the Parade, and laid her, still wrapped in the rug, on her own white bed, that nurse had made comfortably ready.
Dickie woke flushed and warm from his rosy sleep when they brought him in, and looked at the old sailor with round, bewildered eyes.