“The Czarina!” he gasped, treading water and staring around.
“I’m looking for her. She hasn’t risen yet.”
Seeing that Marie, though tied hand and foot, had yet contrived to drift safely all the way to Runö, Wilfrid did not feel any alarm for a few seconds, but as the moments passed without sign of her, his easy feeling vanished.
Was she held a struggling captive, under one of the upturned boats? Hardly, he thought; so good a swimmer as she could surely extricate herself from such a position, unless she had been struck and rendered senseless.
Filled with this fear he was about to dash off after the two boats when a cry from Ouvaroff stopped him.
Looking where the Prince looked he saw a face, ghastly in the moonlight, the face of Arcadius Baranoff.
“Save me,” he gurgled, his mouth full of water. “I cannot swim; I’m drowning!”
“The Count must take his chance,” thought Wilfrid, and he was on the point of turning away when he caught a gleam as of floating gold locks beneath the hands of Baranoff. It was a sight that filled Wilfrid’s heart with horror and sent a cry of vengeance to his tongue.
The coward Count was clinging to the struggling Empress! Unable to swim, he was seeking to gain a foothold in the water by resting his hands upon the head and shoulders of the Czarina, indifferent as to her fate, provided he might be rescued. But for this grip Marie could easily have made her way to the shore.