“What is this?” she asked herself, as her cheeks blanched and the blood seemed to stand still in her veins. “Is this a murder?”
The question spurred her to action. She was young and strong as a man. If someone needed aid, it was her duty to step out and do her bit.
With little thought of further concealment, she moved rapidly through the thin screen of brush.
Imagine her surprise when, upon emerging, she saw a man and a woman, gypsies, both splashing through the lake water to their waists.
Mystification replaced surprise and fear but for a moment. It was replaced by sorrow; for, suddenly stooping beside a great rock, the gypsy man put out his hand and lifted a small form from the water.
“The child!” she exclaimed in a low voice, tense with emotion. “Their child! She has been playing on the rocks. A wave caused by some passing ship carried her away. Perhaps they did not notice in time. She may be dead.”
Without having seen Florence, the gypsies waded ashore. There, with a look of infinite sadness, the man placed the dripping child on the ground.
The woman joined him. And there they stood, the two of them, in the bowed attitudes of those who mourn for the dead.
It came to the girl then that these gypsies, who had spent all their lives in caravans on land, knew little or nothing of the water, which they had apparently adopted as their temporary home.
No sooner had she thought this than she sprang into action. Without so much as a “May I?” or “If you please,” she leaped forward, pushed the astonished parents aside, seized the child and held her, head down, in the air. Water poured from the child’s nose and mouth. Next, Florence placed her across the trunk of a fallen tree and rocked her back and forth. At last she laid her on the ground and began to work her arms in an attempt to restore respiration.