A Modern Buccaneer

by Rolf Boldrewood

As it was we did our best. I would have taken the child, but Miranda would not allow me. "His weight is nothing in the water," she said, "and I could swim faster than you, even with him." This she showed me she could do by shooting ahead with the greatest ease, and then allowing me to overtake her. I had to let her have her own way. We were lessening the distance between us and the boat, but the sea demon had a mind to overtake us, and our hearts almost failed as we noticed the sharp black fin gaining rapidly upon us. Still there was one chance, that he would not pursue us to the very side of the boat. It was a terrible moment. With every muscle strained to the uttermost, with lung, and sinew, and every organ taxed to utmost tension, I most certainly beat any previous record in swimming that I had ever attained. Miranda, with apparently but little effort, kept slightly ahead. The last few yards—shorter than the actual distance—appeared to divide us from the huge form of the monster now distinctly visible beneath the water, when with one frantic yell and a dash at the oars, which took every remaining pound of strength out of the willing crew, the boat shot up within equal distance. At a signal from the captain every oar was raised and brought down again with a terrific splash into the water, and a simultaneous yell. The effort was successful. The huge creature, strangely timid in some respects, stopped, and with one powerful side motion of fins and tail glided out of the line of pursuit. At the same moment the boat swept up, and eager arms lifted Miranda and her burden into it. My hand was on the gunwale until I saw her safe, whence with a slight amount of assistance I gained the mid-thwart.

"Saved, thank God!" cried the captain, with fervent expression, "but a mighty close thing; the next time you take a bath of this kind, my dear Miranda, with sharks around, you must let me know beforehand, eh?"

"Some one would have had to go, captain," she answered; "we couldn't see the dear little fellow drowned before our eyes. It was only a trifle after all—a swim in smooth water on a fine day: I didn't reckon on a shark being so close, I must say."

"I saw the naughty shark," said the little fellow, now quite recovered and in his usual spirits. "How close he came! do you think he would have eaten us all, captain?"

"Yes, my boy—without salt; you would never have seen your papa and mamma again if it had not been for this lady here."

"But you took us in the boat, captain," argued the little fellow; "he can't catch us in here, can he?"

"But the lady caught you in her arms long before the boat came up, my dear, or else you would have been drowned over and over again; that confounded tackle caught, or else we should have been up long before. It's a good thing they were not lowering for a whale, or my first mate's language would have been something to remember till the voyage after next. However, here we are all safe, Charlie, and there's your mother looking out for you."

A painfully eager face was that which gazed from the vessel as we rowed alongside. Every trace of the languor partly born of the tropic sun and partly of aristocratic morgue was gone from the countenance of Mrs. Percival, as her boy, laughing and prattling, was carried up the rope ladder and lifted on deck. His mother clasped him now passionately in her arms, sobbing, blessing, kissing him, and crying aloud that God had restored her child from the dead. "Oh, my boy! my boy!" she repeated again and again; "your mother would have died too, if you had been drowned, she would never have lived without you."

By this time Miranda had reached the deck, where she was received with a hearty British cheer from the ship's company, while the passengers crowded around her as if she had acquired a new character in their eyes. But Mrs. Percival surpassed them all; kneeling before Miranda she bowed herself to the deck, as if in adoration, and kissed her wet feet again and again.

"You have saved my child from a terrible death at the risk of your own and your husband's lives," she said. "May God forget me if I forget your noble act this day! I have been proud and unkind in my manner to you, my dear. I humble myself at your feet, and implore your pardon. But henceforth, Miranda Telfer, you and I are sisters. If I do not do something in requital it will go hard with me and Charlie."