She bent forward eagerly, and distinctly heard the man next her exclaim:
"Take care, lady, or you'll be over next!"
But what cared she?
She was watching the dark head in the moonlight, watching the progress he was making, saw the small speck beyond as it arose again to the surface, and then—who can compute time in instants like that—she knew that Leith had seized the child!
Already he had turned again, and was coming toward the pier, but wind and tide were too strong against him.
An agony of wild, intolerable fear arose in her heart. She knew nothing of what was going on around her, further than the knowledge that centered in the danger of those two, and that, she realized with a horrible anguish that was past all understanding.
She saw him struggling, struggling, saw the white face lifted in the moonlight as if beseeching assistance; and once more her voice rang out clear as a liquid bell under her ghastly fear:
"A thousand dollars—five thousand dollars to the man that saves his life!"
But already the boat was launched, and, as her last words fell upon their ears, it shot out from under the end of the pier and made straight toward the hapless pair.