“That’s so,” Clay replied. “As a matter of fact, some of them need it.”
The doctor rather dubiously consented to his patient’s being moved, and Clay neglected no precaution that might soften the journey. As he feared that the jolting of the railroad cars might prove injurious, a special room was booked on a big Sound steamer, and it was only Aynsley’s uncompromising refusal to enter it that prevented his bringing out an ambulance-van to convey him to the wharf. He reached the vessel safely in an automobile, and as she steamed up the Sound he insisted on throwing off his wraps and trying to walk about. The attempt fatigued him, and he leaned on the rail at the top of a stairway from a lower deck when the steamer approached a pine-shrouded island.
A tide-race swirled past the point, flashing in the sunshine a luminous white and green, and Aynsley took his hand from the rail and stood unsupported watching the shore glide by. As he was facing, he could not see an ugly half-tide rock that rose out of the surging flood not far ahead, and he was taken off his guard when the helm was pulled hard over. The fast vessel listed with a sudden slant as she swung across the stream, and Aynsley, losing his balance, fell down a few stairs and struck a stanchion with his side. He clung to it, gasping and white in face, and when Clay ran down to him there was blood on his lips.
“I’m afraid the confounded thing has broken out again,” he said.
They carried him into the saloon, and Clay summoned the captain, who came docilely at his bidding. It appeared that there was no doctor among the passengers, and the boat was billed to call at several places before she reached Seattle. None of these stops could be cut out, and the captain suggested that it would be better to land the injured man as intended, and send for assistance by fast automobile. Aynsley nodded feebly when he heard this.
“Put me ashore,” he murmured. “I’ll be all right there.”
An hour later the call of the whistle rang among the pines that rolled down to the beach, and as the side-wheels beat more slowly a launch came off across the clear, green water. Aynsley, choking back a cough, feebly raised himself.
“If Ruth’s on board that boat, she mustn’t be scared,” he said. “I’m going down as if there was nothing wrong.”
“You’re going down in the arms of the two biggest seamen I can get,” Clay replied. “If that doesn’t please you, we’ll lower you in a slung chair.”
Aynsley submitted when he found that he could not get up; and Ruth, sitting with her father in the stern of the launch, started as she saw him carried down the gangway. His face was gray and haggard when they laid him on a cushioned locker, and the girl was moved to pity. But the shock resolved some doubts that had long troubled her. She was startled and sorry for Aynsley, but that was all; she did not feel the fear and the suspense which she thought might have been expected.