The old sailor, with whom Judith had talked a few minutes before, came stumbling down the beach toward her.
“He can’t make it—he can’t!” he muttered, with shaking lips. “The next wave’ll get ’em both!”
On it came—the proverbial “third wave” which sailors know and dread. Higher than either of its immediate predecessors the swell rose. Judith laid her hands upon her heaving breast.
“‘It shall not overflow thee—it shall not overflow thee!’” she cried.
“She’s prayin’,” the fisherman thought.
She scarcely breathed during the moments which followed. Then a cry of joy escaped her. The wave broke ere it reached Gilbert. The white flood carried him with it as it rushed in and left him on firm foothold. He staggered slightly when he reached the dry sand and the old sailor put out an arm to steady him.
“If that wave hadn’t broke before it reached ’em, ’twould ’a’ bin day-day to ’em both—boy an’ man,” he muttered as he turned away.
Judith drew Gerald’s drenched little body close to the warmth of her own. The child’s eyes were wide open, but the shock seemed to have suspended his faculties.
“Darling, you are all right, aren’t you?” she whispered.
He did not appear to hear, and Gilbert sank on one knee beside him.