"But them was nothing but innocent birds a flying after something to eat," said Ben. "These ere clouds, Miss Agnes, has got a good many unroofed housen", and shipwrecks, and trees broken in two, and torn up by the roots, in "em, to say nothing of this ere boat as may be upsot any minute."
The girl turned pale; her black eyes shone with sudden fear.
"Do you think there is really any danger, Mr. Benson?"
"Danger? Of course there"s danger! What did I follow arter that little boat for, if there wasn"t no danger?"
"Perhaps--perhaps," said Agnes tremulously, "it would be safer on sh.o.r.e.
The walk will not be much now. What do you say to running ash.o.r.e?"
"There"ll be a howling among the rocks afore you get round the first point, that "ud take your breath; besides, when the winds begin to rush there"ll be a crashing down of trees, and broken limbs will be flying thick enough. No, no--unsartain as the river is, you"d better keep still. I don"t want your death on my conscience, any how."
"But can you swim if we should capsize?" questioned Agnes, growing pale and cold.
"Swim, can Ben Benson swim?" cried the boatman with a hoa.r.s.e laugh.
"Well, I should think that he can swim a trifle."
The girl fixed her black eyes upon him. They were large and bright with terror.
"Fast, pull fast," she said, "let me help you--is there anything in which I can help you? How slow the boat goes--pull, pull!"
"We are agin the wind, and it"s getting strongish," answered Ben.
"What can we do?" cried out the girl clasping her hands. "Hear how it howls--how the trees begin to moan! Is not the storm at its height now?"
"You"ll see by and by," said Ben, bowing his moist forehead down to the sleeve of his jacket, and wiping away the perspiration that was now falling from it like rain.
"Oh, what will become of us?" shrieked the girl.
"What has become of _her_?" echoed Ben, casting sharp despairing glances toward the sh.o.r.e, which was now darkened, and in a turmoil.
"There is my home--there, there, on the side hill. A light is just struck in the window. Set me on sh.o.r.e--oh, Mr. Benson, do set me on sh.o.r.e!"
"Not till I find _her_," answered Ben, resolutely, "you would get in, so make the best of it."
The girl grew white as death.
"Let me ash.o.r.e, or it will be my death--I am sick with terror," she pleaded.
Ben did not appear to listen. He was looking wildly down the stream, right and left, with despair in his glances.
"Where is she? What can have become of her?" he cried out at last, sinking forward on his oars, and allowing the boat to struggle for herself against the wind.
"At home, no doubt," answered the girl, struck with a selfish thought, in which there was hope of safety.
"How! What?" exclaimed Ben fiercely, "at home!"
"No doubt she left her boat in some cove and went home along the sh.o.r.e,"
persisted the girl. "She would be sure to put in somewhere!"
Ben"s face lighted up, and his eyes glowed with hope.
"It may be--of course it is. She went back long ago, no doubt on it," he exclaimed, joyfully. "Why Ben Benson, what a precious old fool you was not to think of that. Miss Agnes, I"ll set you ash.o.r.e now anywhere you"ll pint out, if the boat lives through it."
"Now, now!" cried the girl, breathless with terror, "strike for land anywhere--I know the sh.o.r.e. Only put me on dry land again--it"s all I ask."
CHAPTER VIII.
OUT OF THE STORM.
Ben altered his course with a great effort, and forced a pa.s.sage to the broken sh.o.r.e. He was too busy in preserving his boat from being dashed upon the rocks, to remark with what eager selfishness the girl left him, only uttering a quick e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and darting away without thanks. By the time he could look around she had plunged into a neighboring ravine, and he saw no more of her.
Though the current was running high, Ben had the whole force of the wind to urge him on, and his steady seamanship made the progress up stream less dangerous than the descent had been. But the toil was great and every muscle of his brawny arms rose to its full strain as he bent all his strength upon the oars. But with his greatest anxieties at rest, Ben cared little for this. With no life but his own at stake, the tempest was nothing to the brave man.
But it grew terrible. The boat was more than once hurled out of water.
The waves dashed over him; the wind carried off his hat and beat fiercely against his head, sweeping the long hair over his face. Again and again the current wheeled his boat around, drifting it back with a force he could not resist, sometimes close to the sh.o.r.e, sometimes out in the torrent of waters. It was impossible now to see his course, except by the lightning. The entire darkness baffled him more than the storm.
Once when the boat was seized upon and hurled backward, Ben saw innumerable lights sweeping by in the fog between him and the sh.o.r.e, and he uttered a shout of wild thanksgiving that the steamer had not run him down. As the water heaved him to and fro, a glare of lightning revealed this monster boat, moving downward, and--oh, horror of horrors! Mabel Harrington, just as the vortex engulphed her. Two white arms were flung upward. Her hair streamed in the lightning. The deathly white face was turned sh.o.r.eward.
The might of twenty men was in his arms then. He flung back the rushing waves with his oars, and from a will fiercer than his strength, forced his boat toward her. In a minute the darkness of death was around him.
Blasts of wind and great gushes of rain swept over him. He shouted aloud. He beat the waters madly with his oars. He called upon G.o.d for one more flash of lightning.
It came. He saw a distant steamer, an up-turned boat and something darker than the foam heaving upon the waters.
"Hold on! Hold on!--I"m coming--I"m coming--it"s Ben--it"s Ben. Oh G.o.d, give me light!"
He was answered. A crash of thunder--a trail of fire--and an old cedar tree on the sh.o.r.e flamed up with the light he had prayed for.
It flamed up and Ben saw a man plunge from the rocks into the boiling waters. He bent to the oar, his boat rushed through the waves, and as he came one way, that white face moved steadily from the sh.o.r.e. The waters were buffeted fiercely around it. Some mighty power seemed to sweep back the storm from where it moved.
It disappeared, rose and sunk again. Ben pushed his boat to the spot where he had seen Mabel disappear. His bow dashed against the little boat already broken in twain, and its fragments broke upon the water. He looked wildly about. The face was gone. The dark heap which he had taken for Mabel, had disappeared. Ben"s strong arms began to tremble; tears of anguish met the beating rain, as it broke over his face. Despair seized upon him. He dashed his oars into the bottom of the boat and stood up, ready for a plunge. He would never go back and say that his mistress had been suffered to drown before his face. His clasped hands were uplifted--the boat reeled under him--he was poised for the mad plunge!
No, his hands fell. A hoa.r.s.e shout broke from him.
"Here, here I am! here--away!"
He seized the oars again, looking wildly around, for the voice that had hailed him by name, up from the deep, as it seemed. It came again, and close by the boat that grand head appeared struggling for life.
Ben struck out his oars.
"Do not move--do not strike, or you may kill her yet!"
"Is she there? Can you hold on?" cried Ben, trembling in every limb of his stout frame.