It was in imagination, but his mental calculation was not far wrong, for within a few yards of where it might be expected, and not ten from where he was now sculling, he saw something roll up as it were to the surface, there was a gleam of white in the sunlit water, and then it was disappearing again, when, acting upon the impulse of the moment, Harry loosened his hold of the oar, took two steps forward over the thwarts, and leaped into the sea.
As Harry Paul disappeared in the swift current the boat rocked and danced, and was sent many feet away by the impulse it received; but as he rose to the surface, regardless of everything but the drowning man he was striving to save, the boat swept by him, lightened of its load, and was whirled slowly round and round.
It was a matter of impulse, and Harry Paul’s experience should have taught him that keeping perfectly cool, and urging the boat along to where he had last seen the body, was the surest way of rendering help. But there are times when even those of the strongest mental capacity find it is difficult to retain their presence of mind.
It was so here. Led away by his feelings and the gallant desire he felt to succour someone in distress, Harry had as it were kicked away what meant life for both; but he did not realise the danger then.
As he plunged beneath the surface of the racing current he recalled the fact that he was almost fully dressed, for the thick flannel jersey he wore seemed to cling to his arms and impede his action, but that was forgotten directly, as he rose in the water and looked around.
There was nothing visible. He was too late, so it seemed; but he swam strongly on, the cold immersion seeming to lend additional vigour to his frame.
Now there was something!
No; it was only a bunch of seaweed floating by, with its long streamers spreading out in the clear water like a woman’s hair. He was too late, too late, and— Yes, that was something white down in the water rising now, and— Yes, he had it—a man’s wrist, and the next moment he had given it a drag which brought its owner’s head above the surface.
He was not dead, for, as Harry Paul turned him so that he floated on his back with his face above water, the drowning man began to make frantic clutches with his hands, so that it was only by loosing his hold and getting behind that Harry Paul avoided what would have been a deadly embrace.
He knew well enough what he ought to do, namely, seize the drowning man by the hair, and then turn upon his own back and float, drawing the other after him; but on trying this a difficulty met him at the offset: the man’s hair was very short; but he got over it by grasping his ears, and then, throwing himself back, he struck out with his legs so as to keep afloat and go with the racing current.