The splash that he made lifted the door half out of water, and shot it away from him, the wind filled its sail, and when Billoo came to the surface and looked for it, it was thirty feet off. But he set his teeth (I think he set them) and swam after it. Just as he reached it, he fetched an awful yell. He had been seized with cramps. Still, he had sense enough to cling to the door, and, when the first spasm of the cramp had passed, to sprawl himself upon it. There he lay for a while, lapped by the water that came over the door, and writhing in his fat nakedness.
Meanwhile, the door was caught in the full strength of the ebbing tide, and began to make for the open Sound. Poor Billoo was in a bad way—and when he turned the ice-tub upside down for a seat, and wrapped himself in the canoe sail, I invited the women to come out and see for themselves how brave he was.
He waved his hand to us, and just as he and his well-provisioned craft rounded a corner of the island he selected a bottle of champagne and deftly extracted the cork.
I told some of my men to follow along the shore and to let me know what became of him. I couldn't do anything more for Billoo; but I liked the man, and took an affectionate interest in his ultimate fate—whatever it might be. And I call that true friendship.
Pretty soon the middle ground on which the float was stuck began to show above water, and as it was evident that we could do nothing further for the relief of our shipwrecked friends, we decided to go back to the house, change our muddy boots, play a rubber or so, and have lunch. But first little Miss Tombs called to young Fitch, and told him if he found himself starving to dig clams in the mud.
VI
The only fault that I could find with the way things had gone so far was that Sally had a disgusting headache that marred her pleasure and her sense of humor. She hadn't said very much, and had laughed with only a half-heart at things that had seemed to me excruciatingly funny. For instance, when Billoo was seized with the cramps she had barely smiled, and once or twice when I had been doing the talking she had looked pityingly at me, instead of roaring with laughter, the way a wife should do.
And when we got to the house, she said that if we would excuse her she would go to her room and lie down.
"I've just got one of my usual headaches," she said.
That remark worried me, because it was the first headache she had ever complained of to me; and when, after she had gone upstairs, Miss Randall said, "Maybe Sally ought to see the doctor," I had a sudden awful, empty, gulpy feeling. Suppose she was going to be really sick! Suppose she was going to have pneumonia or scarlet-fever or spinal meningitis! Here we were, cut off from medical assistance till Wednesday morning. And it was our own fault—mine; mine, for being too funny. Then I thought, "Maybe those men on the float are losing all the money they've got in the world," and that made me feel pretty glum; and then I thought, "Maybe poor Billoo is drowned by now," and I went cold all over.