"That fellow Texas" was "making a fool of himself" by dancing about in wild excitement, and raising a series of cowboy whoops in behalf of his friend, and of plebes in general.
"There they are, ready to go!" cried Murray, betraying some excitement.
"I wish the confounded plebe"d never come up again!" growled Bull, in return, striving hard to appear indifferent.
"I bet Fischer"ll do him!" exclaimed the Baby. "He swims like a fish.
Say, they"re going to race to that tree way down the river. Golly, but that"s a long swim!"
"Long nothing!" sneered Vance. "I could swim that a dozen times. But, say, they"ll finish in the rain; look at that thunderstorm coming!"
In response to this last remark, the crowd cast their eyes in the direction indicated. They found that the prediction seemed likely to be fulfilled. To the north, up the Hudson, dense, black clouds already obscured the sky, and a strong, fresh breeze, that smelled of rain, was springing up from thence, and making the swimmers shiver apprehensively.
The preparation for the race went on, however; n.o.body cared for the storm.
"Gee whiz!" cried the Baby, in excitement. "Won"t it be exciting! I don"t mind the rain. I"m going to run down along the sh.o.r.e, and watch it! Hooray!"
"Rats!" growled Bull, angrily. "I don"t care about any old race. I"m going to keep dry, let me tell you!"
Even the damper of his idol"s displeasure could not change Master Edwards" mind, however; he and nearly the whole crowd with him made a dash down the sh.o.r.e for a vantage point to see the finish.
"There! They"re off!"
The cry came a moment later, as the two lightly-clad figures stepped to the mark from which they were to start.
They were about of one size, magnificently proportioned, both of them, and the race bid fair to be a close one.
"Ready?" called the starter, in a voice that rang down the sh.o.r.e.
"Yes," responded Mark, and at the same moment a heavy cloud swept under the sun, and the air grew dark and chilly. The wind increased to a gale, blowing the spray before it; and then----
"Go!" called the starter.
The two dived as one figure; both took the water clean and low, with no perceptible splash; two heads appeared a moment later, forging ahead side by side; a cheer from the cadets arose, that drowned, for a moment, the roars of the storm; and the race was on.
It is remarkable how closely nature follows a rule in her most perfect work; here were two figures, built by her a thousand miles apart, racing there, and each striving with might and main, yet the sum total of the energy that each was able to expend so nearly alike that yard by yard they struggled on, without an inch of difference between them.
"Fischer! Fischer!" rose the shouts of the cadets.
"Mallory! Mallory!" roared the excited plebes, backed up by an occasional "Wow!" in the stentorian tones of the mighty Texan, who, by this time, was on the verge of epilepsy.
Onward went the two heads, still side by side, seeming to creep through the water at a snail"s pace to the excited partisans on the sh.o.r.e. But it was no snail"s pace to the two in the water; each was struggling in grim earnestness, putting into every stroke all the power that was in him. Neither looked at the other; but each could tell, from the cries of the cadets, that his opponent was pressing him closely.
Nearer and nearer they came to the far distant goal; higher and higher rose the shouts:
"Fischer! Fischer!" "Mallory! Mallory!" "He"s got him!" "No." "Hooray!"
"Gee! but it is exciting," screamed Baby. "Go it, Fischer! Do him!"
"And I wish that confounded "beast" was in Hades!" snarled Bull, whose hatred of Mark was deeper, and more malignant than that of his friend.
"I believe I could kill him!"
During all this excitement the storm had been sweeping rapidly up, its majesty unnoticed in the excitement of the race. Far up the Hudson could be seen a driving cloud of rain; and the wind had risen to a hurricane, while the air grew dark and chill.
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, n.o.body 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 sh.o.r.e 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.
And then the storm struck them in its fury. A blinding sheet of driving rain, that darkened the air and drove against the river, and rose again in clouds of spray; a gale that lashed the water into fury; and darkness that shut out the river, and the boat, and the swimmer, and left nothing but a humbled group of shivering cadets.
CHAPTER XXVII.
WHAT MARK DID.
The surprise of the helpless watchers on the sh.o.r.e precludes description. They knew that out upon that seething river a tragedy was being enacted; but the driving rain made a wall about them--they could not aid, they could not even see. They stood about in groups, and whispered, and listened, and strained their eyes to pierce the mist.
Mark"s friends were wild with alarm; and his enemies--who can describe their feelings?
A man has said that it is a terrible thing to die with a wrong upon one"s soul; but that it is agony to see another die whom you have wronged, to know that your act can never be atoned for now. That there is one unpardonable sin to your account on the records of eternity. That was how the yearlings felt; and even Bull Harris, ruffian though he was, trembled slightly about the lips.
The storm itself was one of those which come but seldom. Nature"s mighty forces flung loose in one giant cataclysm. It came from the north, and it had a full sweep down the valley of the Hudson, pent in and focused to one point by the mountains on each side. It tore the trees from the tops as it came; it struck the river with a swish, and beat the water into foam. It flung the raindrops in gusts against it, and caught them up in spray and whirled them on; and this, to the echoing crashes of the thunder and the dull, lurid gleam of the lightning that played in the rear.
One is silent at such times at that; the frightened cadets on the sh.o.r.e would probably have stood in groups and trembled, and done nothing through it all, had it not been for a cry that aroused them. Some one, sharper eyed than the rest, espied a figure struggling in the water near the sh.o.r.e. There was a rush for the spot, and strong arms drew the swimmer in. It was Captain Fischer, breathless and exhausted from the race.
He lay on the bank, panting for breath for a minute, and then raised himself upon his arms.
"Where"s Mallory?" he cried, his voice sounding faint and distant in the roar of the storm.
"Out there," responded somebody, pointing.