The race was at its most exciting stage—the finish, and the cadets were dancing about, half in a frenzy, yelling incoherently, at the two still struggling lads, when some one, nobody knew just who, chanced to glance for one brief instant up the river. A moment later a cry was heard that brought the race to a startling and unexpected close.
"Look! look! The sailboat!"
The cry sounded even above the roar of the storm and the shouts of the crowd. The cadets turned in alarm and gazed up the river. What they saw made them forget that such a thing as a race ever existed.
Right in the teeth of the wind, in the center of the river, was a small catboat, driven downstream, before the gale, with the speed of a locomotive. In the boat was one person, and the person was a girl. She sat in the stern, waving her hands in helpless terror, and even as the spectators stared, the boat gibed with terrific violence, and a volume of water poured in over the gunwale.
The crowd was thrown into confusion; a babel of excited voices arose, and the race was forgotten in an instant.
The racers were not slow to notice it; both of them turned to gaze behind them, and to take in the situation.
"Help! Help!" called a faint voice from the distant sailboat.
Help! Who was there to help? There was not a boat in sight; the cadets were running up and down in confusion, hunting for one in vain. They were like a nest of frightened ants, without a leader, skurrying this way and that, and only contributing to the general alarm. The girl herself could do nothing, and so it seemed as if help were far away, indeed.
There was one person in the crowd, however, who kept his head in the midst of all that confusion. And the person was Mark. Exhausted though he was by his desperate swim, he did not hesitate an instant. Before the amazed cadet captain at his side could half comprehend his intention, he turned quickly in the water, and, with one powerful stroke, shot away toward the center of the stream.
The cadets on the shore scarcely knew whether to cry out in horror, or to cheer the act they saw. They caught one more glimpse of the catboat as it raced ahead before the gale; they saw the gallant plebe struggling in the water.