Vera and I examined the situation, while the children stood about us with anxious faces. We tried to lift him, but it was clear from the first that it was beyond our strength. As I lay face downwards above him a dull boom and a splash sounded behind me, and a swirl of green water flowed into the cleft.
“Tide’s coming in,” said Jack between his teeth. “That’s the third wave, and each has been a bit higher. It comes up from somewhere underneath me. Could you hurry a bit, Miss Earle?”
“Judy,” I said quickly, “run for some of the men—your brother and Mr. Atherton, if you can see them, but any of the men will do. You others scatter and look for any long pieces of timber you can find. Stay with him, Vera—I’m going to the boats for rope.”
I used to be a pretty good runner at school, when I captained the hockey team, but I don’t think I ever ran as I did along that horrible island. It seemed miles long; when I had to leave the grass the sand held my feet back, and I ploughed through it in ungainly bounds. I saw no one: all the others were on the western shore, where one of the boys had landed a big fish—so big that every one had become excited and had insisted on trying to fish too. Judy’s search was fruitless for a time: a fact of which I was luckily unaware, as I raced to the launches, lying lonely and quiet by the rocky shelf. I seized a coil of the stoutest rope I could see, and fled back again. Every wave breaking lazily on the beach below me, struck new terror into my heart. I knew how quickly the tide turned on that coast: how swiftly such a cleft as the one in which Jack was trapped would fill with water, drawn up into it by suction from the rock-spaces beneath him. His set little face swam before my eyes, as I ran, lending new strength to my lagging feet: the square, dirty boy-face, with the honest eyes. I think I tried to pray, only no words would come.
Others were running, too, as I neared the rocks again: I saw Dicky Atherton and Harry, and a big young man in a gorgeous sweater, whose colours had offended my eye at lunch—I welcomed it now, remembering how big and strong he was. He carried a long pole: a young tree-trunk, lopped for some purpose, and washed over from the mainland: even laden as he was, he ran with the athlete’s long, easy strides. Panting, I reached the cleft again, brushing through the group of scared children.
The water was waist-deep round Jack now, and as I came in sight of his face a wave washed into the cleft, sending a hurrying rush of water to his shoulders. And even so, he gave me a little smile.
“Golly, you must have run, Miss Earle!” he said.
“Rope!” said a voice at my shoulder. “Oh, by Jove, that’s good!” Dicky Atherton snatched the coil from my hands and flung himself into the cleft, knotting it swiftly under the boy’s arms.
“Don’t you get caught too, Dicky,” warned Jack.
“Don’t you worry, old man—my feet are too big,” Dicky said, laughing. I wondered how he could laugh at such a moment; and wondered the more when I saw how his face had whitened under its tan. But Jack grinned back.