The sunset glow slowly faded. The long gray English twilight began to fall slowly upon promenaders, beach, chain pier, and waters. The music of the band swallowed up all other sounds, the murmur of waters, the hum of gay voices, the sweetness of laughter.
But suddenly, in one of the interludes of the music, and in the midst of Sir Harold’s reverie, an incident occurred which was the beginning of a chain of events destined to change the whole future course of the baronet’s life, and to exercise no slight degree of influence upon the lives of others.
Yet the incident was simple. A little pleasure-boat, occupied by two ladies and a boatman, had been sailing leisurely about the pier head for some time. The boatman, one of the ordinary pleasure boatmen who make a living at Brighton, as at other maritime resorts, by letting their crafts and services to chance customers, had been busy with his sail. One of the ladies, a hired companion apparently, sat at one side of the boat, with a parasol on her knee. The other lady, as evidently the employer, half reclined upon the plush cushions, and an Indian shawl of vivid scarlet lavishly embroidered with gold was thrown carelessly about her figure. One cheek of this lady rested upon her jewelled hand, and her eyes were fixed with a singular intentness, a peculiar speculativeness, upon the tall and stalwart figure of Sir Harold Wynde.
There was a world of meaning in that long furtive gaze, and had the baronet been able to read and comprehend it, the tragical history we are about to narrate would never have happened. But he, wrapped in his own thoughts, saw neither the boat nor its occupants.
The little craft crept in quite near to the pier head—so near as to be but a few rods distant—when the boatman shifted his helm to go about and stand upon the other tack. The small vessel gave a lurch, the wind blowing freshly; the lady with the Indian shawl started up, with a shriek; there was an instant of terrible confusion; and then the sail-boat had capsized, and her late occupants were struggling in the waters.
In a moment the promenaders of the chain pier had thronged upon the pier head. Cries and ejaculations filled the air. No one could comprehend how the accident had occurred, but one man who had been watching the boat averred that the lady with the shawl had deliberately and purposely capsized it. And this was the actual fact!
Sir Harold Wynde was startled from the trance-like musings by the lady’s shriek. He looked down upon the waters and beheld the result of the catastrophe. The boat’s sail lay half under water. The boatman had seized the lady’s companion and was clinging to the upturned boat. The companion had fainted in his arms, and he could not loosen his hold upon her unless he would have her drown before his eyes. The lady, at a little distance from her companions in peril, tangled in her mass of scarlet and gold drapery, her hat lost, her long hair trailing on the waves, seemed drowning.
Her peril was imminent. No other boats were near, although one or two were coming up swiftly from a distance.
The lady threw up her white arms with an anguished cry. Her glance sought the thronged pier head in wild appealing. Who, looking at her, would have dreamed that the disaster was part of a well-contrived plan—a trap to catch the unwary baronet?
As she had expected from his well-known chivalrous character, he fell into the trap. His keen eyes flashed a rapid glance over beach and waters. The lady was likely to drown before help could come from the speeding boats. Sir Harold pulled off his coat and made a dive into the sea. He was an expert swimmer, and reached the lady as she was sinking. He caught her in his arms and struck out for the boat. The lady became a dead weight, and when he reached the capsized craft her head lay back on his breast, her long wet tresses of hair coiled around him like Medusean locks, and her pale face was like the face of a dead woman.