“Ellida” was now in the shadow of a racing cloud. They stared back at the man with the bottle. They had a sudden horrid sensation of cold in the pit of the stomach. Heigh Ho! Then the dark squall came sweeping along. It first struck the small boat. She instantly went round as if by a single turn of the hand of Fate. The three workingmen had not even time to utter a curse before they were in the water and the boat had sunk.
On the “Ellida” as I have said before, Herman sat at the tiller. Not for a moment did he think of their own danger. He only wanted to rush to help the drowning men. But in his flurry he put the tiller over to windward instead of to leeward. And in an instant the “Ellida” had the same fate. The whole thing had not taken more than five seconds.
The water was ice cold. The boat disappeared quickly under them. Herman saw Stellan appear beside him. He did not say anything, but began to swim towards land. Herman followed. It was a fair distance, but at last they crawled up amongst the boulders along the shore, stiff and tired out.
“How idiotic,” gasped Stellan. “You don’t sail a boat to capsize it!”
But Herman stared, as if suddenly turned to stone, across the lake. It was empty and silent. The water shone green again, with little white crests, in the sun. Only a few floating bulkheads and oars bore witness to the catastrophe. Ashore nobody seemed to have noticed anything.
Herman ran out into the water again up to his waist:
“Help!” he cried, “Help! They are drowning! Help!”
The echo came back from the nearest cliff: “Help! Help!”
Stellan pulled him by the arm:
“There is no use calling. They are where they are. Now let us run home!”