There was no help for it. The tide carried us along into a tremendous current, caused by the meeting of two waters at the point formed by the ridge of rocks which ran down into the sea, and to my horror, as I swam steadily on, still holding to my bundle, I found that we were in a line with the cliff about which I had watched the gull flying, but that it was getting farther and farther away.
It was all plain enough. We were well in the fierce current that ran off the point, and being carried straight out to sea.
My first idea was to shout this to my companions; but I felt that if I did I should frighten them, and I knew well enough that as soon as anyone grew frightened when he was swimming the best half of his power had gone.
It was a great thing to recollect, and I held my tongue. It was hard work, and something seemed to keep prompting me to shout the bad news, but somehow I mastered it, and instead of swimming faster made myself take my strokes more slowly, so as to save my breath.
Bigley told me afterwards, and so did Bob Chowne, that they felt just the same, and would not shout for fear of frightening me, swimming steadily on, though where we did not know.
"I say, how warm the water is!" cried Bigley; and we others said it was.
Then I thought of something to say.
We had each tied our clothes up as tightly as we could in our pocket-handkerchiefs, and so it was a long time before they were regularly saturated and heavy.
"I say," I cried, "my bundle"s just like a cork, and holds me up beautiful. How are yours?"
Bob Chowne panted out that his was better, and to prove hew good and buoyant his was Bigley thrust it before him, and swam after it, giving it pushes as he went.
All this took up our attention for a little while from the horror of our position, for a horrible position it was indeed. It was a glorious sunny day, and sea and sky were beautiful, but the fierce current that set off from the point was sweeping us rapidly away, and it was only a question of how long we could keep on swimming--a quarter of an hour, half an hour, an hour--and then first one and then another must sink, unless in our efforts to save the first weak one we all went down together, and the glittering sea flowed over our heads with only a few bubbles of air to show where we had been.
We must have been swimming twenty minutes when Bigley uttered a shout, and looking up, Bob and I for the first time caught sight of a little dinghy coming towards us, and far beyond it the lugger lying with her sails flapping in the breeze.
The boat was a long way off, but the man in it had evidently seen us, and was coming down to our help, and a thrill of exultation ran through me, as I struck out more vigorously to reach the haven of safety.
The minute before we were all swimming steadily and well, but the sight of help coming seemed to have completely unnerved us, and in place of taking slow long regular strokes, and steady inspirations, with the sides of our heads well down in the water, we all quickened our strokes and strained our heads above the surface, while, as if moved by the same thought, we all together shouted "Boat!"
"Ahoy!" came back from what seemed a terrible distance, and the feeling of fear I had begun to experience increased more and more.
A couple of minutes earlier I had not thought about the distance I could swim, but had kept on swimming. Now I could think of nothing else but was it possible that I could keep on long enough for the boat to reach me; and, instead of steadily trying to decrease the distance, and so help the boatman, I began to make very bad progress indeed.
"Hooray!" shouted Bigley just then. "Keep up, boys, and don"t lose your bundles. It"s father, and he"ll soon pick us up."
Bundles?--bundles? Where was my bundle?
I dared not turn my head to look, but it was not by me, and I must have let it float away just when most excited by the coming of the boat, but I could say nothing then.
"Steady!" shouted Bigley again, checking his own speed, for he had been getting ahead of us, and he waited till we were abreast of him, both swimming too heavily and fast.
"Don"t do that," he cried. "Go steady. Go--"
He said no more, poor fellow, for the curious dread that unnerves people in the water, and robs them of the power and judgment that are their saving, seemed to have attacked him, and he began to swim in a more and more laboured fashion.
His example affected us, and away went all coolness. We were all swimming, and the tide was carrying us along towards the boat, that seemed to be getting farther away instead of nearer to my dimming eyes.
Then in my rapid splashing I struck up the water, and grew confused; and feeling all at once that I was regularly exhausted, I turned over on my back to float.
It was an unlucky movement, for I did it hastily and with the consequence that my head went under. I inhaled a quant.i.ty of the stinging briny salt water, and raising my head as I choked and sputtered, I turned back again, struck out two or three times, and then began to beat the surface frantically like a dog which has been thrown into the water for the first time.
I can remember no more of what occurred during the next few minutes, only that I was staring up at the sky through dazzling water-drops; then that all was dark, and then light again, and not light as it was before.
Then it was once more dark, and then I was sitting in a boat half blind, shivering, and helpless, with the boat rocking about tremendously, and Bob Chowne over the side holding on to the gunwale with one hand, to my wrist with the other.
It all seemed very wild and strange; but my senses were coming back fast, and in an indistinct manner I saw someone swimming and plashing the water about twenty yards from the boat. It was a man in a blue woollen shirt, and his head was bald and shining in the sun, as I saw it for a moment, and then, whoever it was, reared himself high as he could in the water, and then struck off and swam away from us out to sea.
He did not go far, but stopped suddenly and shouted to us; and as he did so, I saw a gleam of something white, and then that he was holding someone"s face above water.
Devon Boys--by George Manville Fenn
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
JUST IN TIME.
"Ahoy, lad!" he shouted. "Shove a scull over the stern, and scull her this way."
This roused me, and I jumped up to seize a scull, but felt giddy and nearly fell, for Bob Chowne had hold of my wrist.
"Take hold of the gunwale, Bob," I panted, as I tried again, and this time felt better, getting an oar over behind, and sending the boat along, as I had learned to years before.
It was slow and awkward work, with Bob hanging on to the side with his eyes fixed, and his face white; but I got her along, and before I had been sculling many minutes, a great brown hand was thrown over on the opposite side to where Bob clung, and Jonas Uggleston said hoa.r.s.ely:
"Lay in your oar, mate, and lean over, and take hold of Bigley here.
Get your arm well under him. That"s right. Keep his head out of the water. I"m about beat for a bit."
I obeyed him in a dreamy way, getting Bigley"s arm over into the boat, while I knelt down and put mine round him, and held him close to the side.
"Can you hold on, youngster?" said old Jonas hoa.r.s.ely. This was to Bob Chowne, who stared at him wildly, and did not speak.
"Nice chance for me," growled old Jonas. "There, hold fast, my lads.
I"m going to get in over the starn."
The boat rose and fell and rocked as he came round, pa.s.sed me hand over hand, to pause by the stern, and I thought he was going to climb in; but he altered his mind, and went on round by where Bob Chowne clung, held on with one hand, while he thrust his right arm under the water, and the next moment he had hoisted Bob right up and rolled him over into the boat, where he lay for a few moments apparently quite helpless.
"Now, young Duncan," said old Jonas, "you hold him fast. I"ll get in this side. She won"t go over."
It was done in a moment; he let himself sink down, and turn, gave a spring as I turned my head round to watch him; the gunwale of the boat seemed to go down level with the water, and he was on board, while, before I could realise it, he was bending over me to get his arms under poor Big"s and drag him into the boat, this time sending the gunwale so low that a quant.i.ty of water came in as well.
Old Jonas set his son up in the stern with his back against the rowlock, and it was no easy job, for Big was limp, and tremendously heavy; but the b.u.mping about seemed to do him some good, for, just as I was about to ask in a voice full of awe if he was dead, poor Bigley uttered a low groan.
"Hah! He"s coming to, then," said old Jonas, panting heavily, as he seated himself on the middle thwart. "Here, you young doctor, take that pannikin, and bale out some of that water you"re lying in. You don"t want another bath, do you?"
Bob Chowne got up on to his knees in the bottom of the boat, shivering and blue, and stared wildly at us all in turn.
"Cold, eh?" growled old Jonas. "Well, then, I"ll bale, and you two row to the lugger."
He glanced round at his son, who was showing signs of returning animation; but it evoked no sympathy before us, whatever he might have felt, for he only frowned as, in a shivering mechanical way, we two wretched boys seized an oar apiece, sat down on the wet thwarts and began to row.
"Now, then," shouted old Jonas, "look where you"re going. Pull, doctor!
Easy, captain! That"s better."