"Patty!" she called. "Patty! Where are you?" Her voice rose high and shrill with terror. "Oh, Patty, do speak!"
Then up through the water came a small, dark head and white face, and then, to Millie's intense relief, a pair of waving arms.
She was not dead, and she was conscious. "Oh, thank God!" moaned Millie, and for perhaps the first time in her life she really thanked Him, and sent up a real prayer from the depths of her heart.
"Patty," she called, "swim towards me. I'll help you."
Poor Patty heard her, but as one speaking in a dream, for her senses were fast leaving her. Summoning up all the strength she had, she tried to obey, but she had only made a few strokes when she suddenly dropped her arms and sank again.
With a cry of horror and despair, Millie rushed down and into the water. She could not swim, but she did not think of that now. Nothing else mattered if she could but save Patty. She waded into the water until she could scarcely touch the bottom with her feet. A big wave came rolling in; one so big that it seemed as though it must carry her off her feet, and away to sea.
It came, but it lifted her back quite close to the steps, and it brought poor little unconscious Patty almost close to her feet.
Millie reached out and grabbed her by her hair and her skirt, and gripped her tight, but it was not easy. Patty was a dead weight, and she had to keep her own foothold or both would have been carried away as the wave receded. Millie felt desperate. She could not raise Patty, heavy as she was in her water-soaked clothes, and Patty, still unconscious, could not help herself.
Fortunately, at that moment, Peter Carne came rowing leisurely homewards, and in his boat with him was Patty Row's father.
Millie caught sight of them, and a great sob of relief broke from her. She shouted and shouted at the top of her voice, and, clinging to Patty with one hand, she waved the other frantically. "Would they see? Would they see?" She screamed until she felt she had cracked her throat. "Oh, what a noise the sea made!" she thought frantically, "how could anyone's voice get above it."