At this point my reflections and conjectures came to an abrupt end, as, indeed, nearly did also "the fever called living" in my particular case. I felt the boat rise heavenwards on the back of a tremendous roller. The islanders shouted as though to warn us of danger, the steersman gave the tiller a wrong turn, or omitted to give it the right one, and the next moment the boat was buried beneath an avalanche of foam, with crew and passengers struggling for their lives. I could swim well, that is, of course, comparatively, for the difference between the best performance of a white man—well practised from youth though he be—and of an islander is as that of a dog and a fish. Still, having risen to the surface, I made no doubt but that I could easily gain a landing. In this I was deceived. As in other spots, the constant surf concealed a treacherous undertow against which the ordinary swimmer is powerless. Again and again did I gain foothold, to be swept back by the resistless power of the backward current. Each time I became weaker, and at length, after a long fruitless struggle, I closed my eyes and resigned myself to my fate. Borne backward and half fainting, I saw the whole party of natives in the water mingling with the crew, who, like myself, had been making desperate efforts to reach the landing.
My senses were leaving me; darkness was before my eyes, when dimly, as in a dream, I seemed to mark the girl upon the rock plunge with the gliding motion of a seal into the boiling foam. Her bosom shone as with outstretched arms she parted the foaming tide, her short under-dress, reaching only to the knees, offered no impediment to the freedom of her limbs. I felt soft arms around me. A cloud of dusky hair enveloped me. Strains of unearthly music floated in my ears. It was the dirge of the mermaidens, as they wail over the drowned sailor and bear him with song and lament to his burial cavern. All suddenly it ceased.
The mid-day sun had pierced the roof and side of the cottage wherein I was lying upon a couch, softly matted. When I awoke I looked around. Surely I had been drowned, and must be dead and gone! How, then, was I once more in a place where the sun shone, where there were mats and signs of ordinary life? I closed my eyes in half-denial of the evidences of my so-called senses. Then, as I raised myself with difficulty, the door opened and a man entered.
He was a tall, grandly developed Pitcairner, one of the men who had been on board the night before. His face was dark, with the tint of those races which, though far removed from the blackness of the Ethiop, are yet distinct from the pure white family of mankind. But his eyes, curiously, were of bright and distinct blue, in hereditary transmission, doubtless, from that ancestor who had formed one of the historic mutineers of the Bounty.
"You've had a close shave, Hilary. That's your name, I believe. A trifle more salt water and you'd have been with the poor chap that's drowned. We got all the crew out but him."
"I thought I was drowned," I replied, "but I begin to perceive that I'm alive. I see you're of the same opinion, so I suppose it's all right."
"It's not a thing to laugh at," the Pitcairner said gravely. "God saw fit to save you this time. To Him and Miranda you owe your thanks for being where you are now."
"There are people in Sydney," I said, "who will be foolish enough to be glad of it, and after I have a little time to think, I daresay I shall be pleased myself. But who is Miranda, and how did she save me?"
"Miranda Christian, my cousin, is the girl you saw standing on the rock. She had a strong fight of it to get you in, and but for one of us going on each side neither of you would have come out. We had been hard at it trying to save the crew, and nearly left it too late. She was just about done."