“Stop!” yelled the Captain. “You can’t go that way——”
A gasp came from the crowd as they saw him take a deep breath and leap down with his burden. They disappeared beneath the filthy water, to come to the surface a few seconds later in exactly the same position as they had entered it—Angela with her arms held from behind, and the amazing husband swimming on his broad back, with head towards the nearest bank. The current carried him down-stream, but his inshore progress was swift and certain. A huge yell came from the admiring spectators as the Silas P. Young pursued her course and rounded another bend.
Angela, stunned and terrified by this unexpected precipitation into ice-cold water, lay like a log with eyes closed. She lost all account of time in the mental paralysis that gripped her.... Only when they touched bottom and Jim commenced to carry her to the bank did her full sense come into operation. She stood in her sodden clothing, her pale, beautiful face quivering as she regarded this monster of a man. 180
“You brute! You heartless ruffian! Oh, if I could only make you feel what I think of you!”
“If I could only make you feel just what I think of you!” he said slowly. “But we’re both trying to do just what can’t be done. Let’s drop it and find the hoss. Better foller behind, and not try running away. Maybe you think it amuses me to yank you back like this every time—but it don’t.”
He began to tramp along a beaten path that wound up over the hill. Angela followed, with swift steps, for a cold wind blew down the valley and set her teeth chattering. Overhead thick gray clouds obliterated the sun. A mile farther on Jim stopped and, slipping off his coat, went to her.
“You’re cold. Put it on.”
“No—thanks.”
“Put it on!”
“Why this sudden regard for my welfare?”