Down she went—down, down! “I will hold him,” Beatrice said in her heart; “I will hold him till I die.” Then came waves of light and a sound as of wind whispering through the trees, and—all grew dark.
“I tell yer it ain’t no good, Eddard,” shouted a man in the boat to an old sailor who was leaning forward in the bows peering into the darkness. “We shall be right on to the Table Rocks in a minute and all drown together. Put about, mate—put about.”
“Damn yer,” screamed the old man, turning so that the light from the lantern fell on his furrowed, fiercely anxious face and long white hair streaming in the wind. “Damn yer, ye cowards. I tells yer I heard her voice—I heard it twice screaming for help. If you put the boat about, by Goad when I get ashore I’ll kill yer, ye lubbers—old man as I am I’ll kill yer, if I swing for it!”
This determined sentiment produced a marked effect upon the boat’s crew; there were eight of them altogether. They did not put the boat about, they only lay upon their oars and kept her head to the seas.
The old man in the bow peered out into the gloom. He was shaking, not with cold but with agitation.
Presently he turned his head with a yell.
“Give way—give way! there’s something on the wave.”
The men obeyed with a will.
“Back,” he roared again—“back water!”