The aged inventor knew this quite well. He knew something more. He had measured the boy’s strength and prowess and found it wanting.
“Not you either,” he panted as the suddenly panic-stricken and heart-broken city boy prepared to leap to the rescue.
“Not you!” The old man seized him and pinned him to the rock. “If someone is to undo the harm done by your recklessness it must be another.” The aged inventor paused, out of breath.
That other was Ruth. No one knew that better than she. The time had come when she must battle with death for the life of another.
“Go! Go for a boat!” she shouted to the boy and the man. Her voice carried above the roar of the surf. With that she leaped square into the arms of a gigantic wave to be carried away by it toward the spot where the white speck, which had a moment before been a joyous twelve-year-old girl, struggled more feebly and ever more feebly against the forces that strove to drag her down.
The battle that followed will always remain a part of Monhegan’s colorful history.
Two thoughts stuck in Ruth’s mind as, throwing the foam from her face, she struck for the place where the white spot had last been. She must get a firm grip on the girl; then she must go out, out, OUT. Nothing else could save them. By a great good fortune this was a moment of comparative calm. But such calms are deceiving. Ruth was not to be deceived. The ocean was a cat playing with a mouse. At any moment it might be raging again. To attempt a landing on the rocks, to allow one’s self to be cast high against Black Head’s pitiless wall was to meet death at a single blow.
“I must go out, out, OUT. There is life,” she told herself over and over.
But first the girl. A low wave lifted her. Riding its crest, she caught a glimpse of that slight figure. But now she was gone, perhaps forever.
But no; there she was closer now, still battling feebly against the blind forces dragging her down.