CHAPTER XIV
LANKY FINDS HIS CHANCE
“There she is!”
“Oh! why doesn’t somebody jump overboard, and save her, poor thing?” cried Helen Allen; at the same time clinging to Paul Bird so desperately that he could not have attempted the rescue act, even though inclined that way.
Lanky seized hold of Walter Ackerman.
“She was with you!” he shouted; “why don’t you go in after her?”
The handsome boy never looked as he did then, white in the face, and frightened.
“I would; indeed, I’d do it in a minute—but I can’t swim a stroke!” he gasped.
Without waiting to hear another word Lanky threw him contemptuously aside, “just as he might a sack of oats,” Helen afterwards said, in describing it all to Frank.
One look Lanky cast over the side, as he kicked his shoes off, and sent his jacket flying after them. This showed him a white face in the midst of the water, and, he thought, a pair of hands held out toward him.
Then Lanky jumped.