Pat watched the flashing arms and the small dark head, fascinated. Then she screamed, wildly, shrilly, until the terror in her voice penetrated the hills and reached the very walls of Altmount.
Distracted she screamed again and called for help, until presently answering voices bore down, and girl after girl came racing to the lakeside.
All eyes focussed upon the speck in the water, but now Gloria was beside the canoe and the girls waited breathlessly.
To get into a canoe from the water is an expert’s task, but Gloria was that. She placed herself in direct line with the crescent bow, put both hands up, one on either side, and slid in like some humanized fish. What she then saw appalled her.
A mute figure lay on the bottom of the boat!
And the white face of Jacquinot Corday seemed frozen there in deathlike immobility.
“Oh,” choked Gloria. “Jack! Dear Jack!”
But the drifting little bark still clipped the waves playfully, innocent of the danger now so fearful to Gloria.
“Oh!” she gasped, “what shall I do? No paddle!” But water like fire must be met with heroic measures, and with a strength surprising to herself she managed to rip loose two slats from the side of the canoe, then quickly she slipped from Jack’s inert form a thin white skirt. Jabbing each slat through this she constructed a sail, and holding them in place above her, she felt the wind take hold and drive them forward.
Not until she had veered the boat on its direct course toward shore, did she have opportunity to look critically upon Jack.