The Chinese boy had already taken hold of a rail, and was warily following it across the uneven ground.
"They"ve BEEN there three hours, now!" groaned Henderson; but even as he spoke he beckoned to the two little boys. Mary Bell recognized the two survivors.
"You keep those flames so high, rain or no rain," Henderson charged them, "that we can see "em from anywheres!"
A moment later the searchers plunged into the marsh, facing bravely away from lights and voices and solid earth.
Stumbling and slipping, Mary Bell followed the fence. The rain slapped her face, and her rubber boots dragged in the shallow water. But she thought only of five little boys losing hope and courage somewhere in this confusing waste, and her constant shouting was full of rea.s.surance.
"n.o.body would be scared with this fence to hang on to!" she a.s.sured herself, "no matter how fast the tide came in!" She rested a moment on the rail, glancing back at the distant fire, now only a dull glow, low against the sky.
Frequently the rail was broken, and dipped treacherously for a few feet; once it was lacking entirely, and for an awful ten feet she must bridge the darkness without its help. She stood still, turning her guttering lantern on waving gra.s.ses and sinister pools. "They are all dancing now!" she said aloud, wonderingly, when she had reached the opposite rail, with a fast-beating heart. After an endless period of plunging and shouting, she was at the water"s very edge.
There was light enough to see the ruffled, cruel surface of the river, where its sluggish forces swept into the bay. Idly b.u.mping the gra.s.ses was something that brought Mary Bell"s heart into her throat. Then she cried out in relief, for it was not the thing she feared, but the little deserted boat, right side up.
"That means they left her!" said Mary Bell, trembling with nervous terror. She shouted again in the darkness, before turning for the homeward trip. It seemed very long. Once she thought she must be going aimlessly back and forth on the same bit of rail, but a moment more brought her to the missing rail again, and she knew she had been right.
Blown by the wind, struck by the now flying rain, deafened by the gurgling water and the rising storm, she fought her way back to the fire again. The others were all there, and with them three cramped and chilled little boys, crying fright and relief, and clinging to the nearest adult shoulder. The Chinese boy and Grandpa Barry had found them, standing on a hummock that was still clear of the rising tide, and shouting with all their weary strength.
"Oh, thank G.o.d!" said Mary Bell, her heart rising with sudden hope.
"We"ll get the others, now, please G.o.d!" said Henderson, quietly. "We were working too far over. You said they were all right when you left them, Lesty?" he said to one of the shivering little lads.
"Ye-es, sir!" chattered Lesty, eagerly, shaking with nervousness. "They was both all right! Davy wanted to git Billy over to the fence, so if the tide come up!"--terror swept him again. "Oh, Mr. Henderson, git "em--git "em! Don"t leave "em drowned out there!" he sobbed frantically, clutching the big man with bony, wet little hands.
"I"m going to try, Lesty!"
Henderson turned back to the marsh, and Mary Bell went too.
"Billy who?" said Mary Bell; but her heart told her, before Henderson said it, that the answer would be, "Jim Carr"s kid brother!"
"Are you good for this?" said Henderson, when the four fittest had reached that part of the marsh where the boys had been found.
She met his look courageously, his lantern showing her wet, brave young face, crossed by dripping strands of hair.
"Sure!" she said.
"Well, G.o.d bless you!" he said; "G.o.d--bless--you! You take this fence, I"ll go over to that "n."
The rushing, noisy darkness again. The horrible wind, the slipping, the plunging again. Again the slow, slow progress; driven and whipped now by the thought that at this very instant--or this one--the boys might be giving out, relaxing hold, abandoning hope, and slipping numb and unconscious into the rising, chuckling water.
Mary Bell did not think of the dance now. But she thought of rest; of rest in the warm safety of her own home. She thought of the sunny dooryard, the delicious security of the big kitchen; of her mother, so placid and so infinitely dear, on her couch; of the serene comings and goings of neighbors and friends. How wonderful it all seemed! Lights, laughter, peace,--just to be back among them again, and to rest!
And she was going away from it all, into the blackness. Her lantern glimmered,--went out. Mary Bell"s cramped fingers let it fall. Her heart pounded with fear of the inky dark.
She clung to the fence with both arms, panting, resting. And while she hung there, through rain and wind, across darkness and s.p.a.ce, she heard a voice, a gallant, st.u.r.dy little voice, desperately calling,--
"Jim! Ji-i-m!"
Like an electric current, strength surged through Mary Bell.
"O G.o.d! You"ve saved "em, you"ve got "em safe!" she sobbed, plunging frantically forward. And she shouted, "All right--all right, darling!
Hang on, boys! Just HANG ON! Hal-lo, there! Billy! Davy! Here I am!"
Down in pools, up again, laughing, crying, shouting, Mary Bell reached them at last, felt the heavenly grasp of hard little hands reaching for hers in the dark, brushed her face against Billy Carr"s wet little cheek, and flung her arm about Davy Henderson"s square shoulders. They had been shouting and calling for two long hours, not ten feet from the fence.
Incoherent, laughing and crying, they clung together. Davy was alert and brave, but the smaller boy was heavy with sleep.
"Gee, it"s good you came!" said Davy, simply, over and over.
"You"ve got your boots on!" she shouted, close to his ear; "they"re too heavy! We"ve got a long pull back, Davy,--I think we ought to go stocking feet!"
"Shall we take off our coats, too?" he said sensibly.
They did so, little Billy stumbling as Mary Bell loosened his hands from the fence. They braced the little fellow as well as they could, and by shouted encouragement roused him to something like wakefulness.
"Is Jim coming?" he shouted.
Mary Bell a.s.sented wildly. "Start, Davy!" she urged. "We"ll keep him between us. Right along the fence! What is it?" For he had stopped.
"The other fellers?" he said pitifully.
She told him that they were safe, safe at the fire, and she could hear him break down and begin to cry with the first real hope that the worst was over.
"We"re going to get out of this, ain"t we?" he said over and over. And over and over Mary Bell encouraged him.
"Just one more good spurt, Davy! We"ll see the fire any minute now!"
In wind and darkness and roaring water, they struggled along. The tide was coming in fast. It was up to Mary Bell"s knees; she was almost carrying Billy.
"What is it, Davy?" she shouted, as he stopped again.
"Miss Mary Bell, aren"t we going toward the river!" he shouted back.
The sickness of utter despair weakened the girl"s knees. But for a moment only. Then she drew the elder boy back, and made him pa.s.s her.
Neither one spoke.
"Remember, they may come to meet us!" she would say, when Davy rested spent and breathless on the rail. The water was pushing about her waist, and was about his armpits now; to step carelessly into a pool would be fatal. Billy she was managing to keep above water by letting him step along the middle rail, when there was a middle rail. They made long rests, clinging close together.
"They ain"t ever coming!" sobbed Davy, hopelessly. "I can"t go no farther!"
Mary Bell managed, by leaning forward, to give him a wet slap, full in the face. The blow roused the little fellow, and he bravely stumbled ahead again.
"That"s a darling, Davy!" she shouted. A second later something floating struck her elbow; a boy"s rubber boot. It was perhaps the most dreadful moment of the long fight, when she realized that they were only where they had started from.
Later she heard herself urging Davy to take just ten steps more,--just another ten. "Just think, five minutes more and we"re safe, Davy!" some one said. Later, she heard her own voice saying, "Well, if you can"t, then hang on the fence! DON"T let go the fence!" Then there was silence. Long after, Mary Bell began to cry, and said softly, "G.o.d, G.o.d, you know I could do this if I weren"t carrying Billy." After that it was all a troubled dream.
She dreamed that Davy suddenly said, "I can see the fire!" and that, as she did not stir, he cried it again, this time not so near. She dreamed that the sound of splashing boots and shouting came down across the dark water, and that lights smote her eyelids with sharp pain. An overwhelming dread of effort swept over her. She did not want to move her aching body, to raise her heavy head. Somebody"s arm braced her shoulders; she toppled against it.