A Fish not fished for.
Hake, conger, shark, whatever it might be, forgotten as Harry Paul heard that cry repeated. He had already begun turning his little boat, and then, bending to his task, he forced it through the water as he stood up in the stern, making the rippling waves rattle and splash against her bows as a line of foam parted on either side.
He could see nothing for the moment, but he knew that some one must be in deadly peril in the direction in which he had heard the cry, and, exerting all his strength, he made for the place whence he thought it must have come.
He was puzzled, for, save a few luggers swinging from the little buoys that dotted the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of an accident by the upsetting of a boat, or of any one struggling in the water. Everything looked bright and cheerful in the morning sun, and after sculling along for some time he was beginning to think that the cry must have been uttered by some sea-bird, seeming weird and strange in the early morning, when he suddenly recalled the fact that sound travels far over a smooth, calm sea.
Had he felt any further doubt it was solved on the instant by a repetition of the cry, this time clearer, and plainly to be interpreted into that agonising appeal that thrills the hearts of weak and strong alike—the one word “Help!”
And now, plainly enough, he could see the head of some one whose hands appeared at intervals above the water, evidently in a fierce struggle for life.
Whoever it was had lost his nerve and was in some peril, for though not above a hundred yards or so from the shore he was in the race of a fierce current that at certain periods of the tide ran so swiftly amongst the rocks that a strongly-manned boat could not stem its force.
“It must be some stranger,” thought Harry, as he exerted himself more and more. “Poor fellow! I shall never get to him in time.”
And then, with the big drops standing upon his forehead, he toiled on, his eyes fixed upon the drowning figure, and the feeling strong upon him of how awful it was for anyone to be called upon to yield up his life on such a glorious morning as this.
At times his heart seemed to stand still with the chilling influence of the horror he felt, for, in spite of his efforts, the boat seemed to crawl over the surface of the water.