The sun at that moment burnished the crest of a wave behind him. A white arm clove its mane of foam and his heart leaped to behold the gold woman following in his wake.
CHAPTER XXII
The sight of this woman following after him held Paul Lavelle bound for the moment in the inertia of awe. All sense of their common and great peril left him. Wonder robbed him of the power of thinking just as it had on the island when she had drawn his head to her and pressed her lips upon his. He comprehended the thing by instinct alone.
With the powerful, sweeping overhead stroke of a practiced swimmer Emily overtook him on the crest of a foaming surge. The plaits of her hair had been washed by the sea into a free golden mane. The grace of a Nereid, of the ocean itself, was in her. She might have been borne of the deep. The myth of Thetis must have had such a conception.
As she swung up to him, shoulder to shoulder, Lavelle turned on his side. With a toss of her head she brought it clear of the water. The light of her countenance said to him as plainly as words could have done: "I am here! I am thine!" He caught her and drew her face to his. His lips went to hers and clung in a wild, fleeting second of union. Then, side by side, they struck out to meet their destiny.
Taking the weather berth, Paul set the pace toward the strange vessel. It was already to leeward of the island's median line. The send of the swell, however, more than balanced the craft's swift drift in the swimmers' favor. Yet the half-mile of their turbulent course was a test for the strongest and bravest. The willful, tenacious power of love sustained Emily until they came within hail of their goal. Here flesh and blood struck. Her spirit remained undaunted, but the body refused the spirit's demands upon it.
Sensing that Emily was failing, Lavelle put out a hand and turned her on her back. In that moment he realized, too, that he was near exhaustion. The ridge of a gigantic surge lifted them higher than the rail of the bark. Paul could distinguish every fixture of her deserted decks. The sea dropped away with them. The next instant the vessel's leaden-colored side and half of her copper-painted bottom were reeling over them. They might have been looking up at her from the bottom of the ocean. Her masts appeared to pierce the blue, sun-shot sky.
Although convinced there was no ear aboard the vessel to hear Paul drew on his rapidly waning strength to send a yell down to her. The sails flung back a faint, mocking echo. All the while his eyes were searching for some means of boarding. Being an iron vessel the bark's sides presented no chain plates or channels for a hand hold. Deeply laden though she was the bights in which her braces trailed were far beyond his reach even when she rolled.
The belief that he might be able to climb aboard with the aid of a lee brace had been with him when he took to the water. From the island it had seemed that this gear swept the sea with every surge. Not so much as an eyebolt offered a ray of hope. The boomkins were as possible of touching as the tops. He turned toward the bows. There might be a chance forward, but he felt certain that Emily's strength would never withstand the mauling of the sea that must follow catching hold of the bobstay.