"It is a girl! She is caught by the tide in the pool. Row, Jacqueline, row! the tide turns in half an hour, and then she will be drowned indeed. The water was very deep out there last night when the flood was full; I heard Voorst say so."
The heavy boat flew forward, for the sisters bent to the oars with all their strength. Jacqueline turned her head from time to time, to judge of their direction and the distance.
"It's no neighbor," she answered as they drew nearer. "It's no one I ever saw before. Metje, it is the strangest-looking maiden you ever saw. Her hair is long,—so long, and her face is wild to look upon. I am afraid."
"Never mind her hair. We must save her, however long it is," gasped Metje, breathless from the energy of her exertions. "Steady, now, Jacque, here we are; hold the boat by the reeds. Girl! I say, girl, do you hear me? We are come to help you."
The girl, for a girl it was who half-sat, half-floated in the pool, raised herself out of the water as one alive, and stared at the sisters without speaking. She was indeed a wild and strange-looking creature, quite different from any one that they had ever seen before.
"Well, are you not going to get into the boat?" cried Metje; "are you deaf, maiden, that you do not answer me? You'll be drowned presently, though you swam like forty fishes, for the tide will be coming in like fury through yon breach in the dike. Here, let me help you; give me your hand."
The strange girl did not reply, but she seemed to understand a part, at least, of what was said to her. She moaned, her face contracted as if with pain, and, raising herself still farther from the water with an effort, she indicated by signs that she was caught in the mud at the bottom of the pool and could not set herself free.
This was a serious situation, for, as Metje well knew, the mud was deep and adhesive. She sat a moment in thought; then she took her oar, forced the boat still nearer, and, directing Jacqueline to throw her weight on the farther edge to avoid an upset, she grasped the cold hands which the stranger held out, and, exerting her full strength, drew her from the mud and over the side of the boat. It rocked fearfully under her weight, the milk splashed from the pail, but the danger was over in half a minute, and the rescued girl, exhausted and half-dead, lay safely on the bottom.
"Dear me, she will freeze," cried Jacqueline hastily; for the poor thing they had saved was without clothing, save for the long hair which hung about her like a mantle. "Here, Metje, I can spare my cloak to wrap round her limbs, and she must put on thy jacket. We will row the harder to keep ourselves warm."
Rowing hard was indeed needful, for, summer as it was, the wind, as the sun sank, blew in icy gusts from the Zetland Zee, whirling the sailless windmills rapidly round, and sending showers of salt spray over the walls of the sheepfolds and other outlying enclosures. The sisters were thoroughly chilled before they had pulled the boat up to a place of safety and helped the half-drowned stranger across the wet slope of grass to the house door.