CHAPTER XVI
WHEN THE WATERS ROSE
Presently, while I lay upon the shingle panting, a wet hand touched my head, and looking up with dazzled eyes I saw Grace bending down beside me. The water drained from her garments, she was shivering, but at least she had suffered no injury.
“Ralph! Ralph! tell me you are not hurt!” she said, and something in her voice and eyes thrilled me through, but, though I struggled to do so, I could not as yet overcome the weakness, and lay still, no doubt a ghastly half-drowned object, with the blood from the wound the branch made trickling down my forehead, until stooping further she laid her hand on my shoulder, and there was more than compassion in the eyes that regarded me so anxiously.
Then, slowly, power and speech came back together, and covering the slender fingers with kisses I staggered to my feet.
“Thank God, you are safe!” I said, “and whatever happens, I have saved you. You will forgive me this last folly, but all the rest was only a small price to pay for it.”
She did not answer, though for a moment the hot blood suffused her cheek, and I stood erect, still dazed and bewildered—for the quartz reef had cruelly bruised me—glancing round in search of the canoe. Failing to find it, I again broke out gratefully:
“Thank heaven, you are safe!”