Part 4 (1/2)

I turned sick. The thought of his life being crushed out while we all looked on, helpless, was awful. The sea was terrible enough in itself--the great, wide, merciless, blue water, which sparkled so coldly, and laughed in its power--but to be crunched up by the jaws of a monster--I shut my eyes, and couldn't open them until I heard men saying the strong wind to starboard might save him. I believe I must have been unconsciously praying, and my hands were clasped so tightly together that afterwards my fingers ached.

People on our deck made a rush towards the stern, on the port side, for the s.h.i.+p had been steaming so fast that already we were forging away from the child who had fallen and the man who had jumped after him.

Sally and I were carried along with the rush. She seized me by the hand, but we didn't speak a word. If dear friends, instead of two strangers in a far remote sphere of life, had been in deadly danger, I don't think the sickness at my heart could have been worse. I would have given years if at that moment I could have had the magical power to stop the s.h.i.+p instantly, with one wave of my hand.

But it was being stopped, by another power than mine. I felt the deck s.h.i.+ver under my feet, like a thoroughbred horse, pulled on to his haunches. The accident had been seen from the bridge; an order to stop the s.h.i.+p had been telegraphed down to the engine-room, and obeyed.

Still, when Sally Woodburn and I had been carried by the crowd far enough towards the stern to look out over the blue wilderness of water we were leaving behind, the s.h.i.+p's heart hadn't ceased its throb, throb, to which we had all grown so accustomed in the last few days.

”He's got the child!” exclaimed Sally. ”See, he's hauling the little creature on to his back with one hand, and swimming with the other.

Glorious fellow!”

Yes, there were the two heads bobbing like black corks in the tossing waves, close together. I pictured so vividly what my sensations would be, if I were down there, a mere speck in that vast expanse of blue, that I almost tasted salt water in my mouth, and felt the choking tingle of it in my lungs.

Then, suddenly the s.h.i.+p's heart ceased to beat; and the unaccustomed stillness was as startling as an unexpected noise. A boat shot down from the davits, with several sailors on board; a few seconds later they were rowing away towards those two bobbing black corks, and I loved them as they bent to their oars.

I can't remember breathing once, or even winking, until I saw the child being lifted into the boat, and the man climbing in after. What a shout went up from the s.h.i.+p! Sally clapped her pretty, dimpled hands, but I only let my breath go at last, in a great sigh.

There was such a crush that I couldn't see them when they came on board, but there was more shouting and hurrahing, and men slapped each other on the shoulder and laughed.

Throb, throb went the machinery again, and there was no sign that anything out of the monotonous round had happened, except in the excited way that people talked. Several men we knew paid a visit to the steerage, and came back with stories which flew about from group to group in the first-cla.s.s cabin, and no doubt the second too.

It seemed that the little boy who had fallen into the sea was the only son of his mother, a widow. They were Swedes, and the woman, who is on her way to the States to try and find a place as a servant, was quite prostrated with the agonising suspense she had suffered. As for the little boy himself, he was not seriously the worse for his experience.

The doctor was with him, and said that he would be as well as ever in a few hours. A subscription for the mother and child had already been started among the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, and would probably be made up to quite a good sum.

”But what is going to be done for the one who saved the little boy's life?” I asked the man who was telling me the news, a Mr. Doremus, who is a cousin of Mrs. Van der Windt's, very full of fun, and good natured.

”A nice little pedestal, labelled 'Our Hero,' will be built out of the ladies' admiration, and given to him to pose on,” said Mr. Doremus.

”However, I must say for the gentleman,--though I've only seen him dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,--he didn't give me the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the perch.”

”Of course he isn't!” said I. ”But I do think it's a shame if he's left out when subscriptions are going round. Of course he must be poor, or he wouldn't be travelling in the steerage. Something ought to be done to show him that the pa.s.sengers admire his bravery--not anything _fulsome_, but something _nice_.”

”I guess you don't know the American disposition yet, as well as you will after you've wrestled with it on its native heath for a few months,” remarked Mr. Doremus in his quaint way. ”That chap down in the steerage _is_ an American, whatever else he may be, or I'll eat my best hat; and I wouldn't for five cents be in the deputation to present him with the something 'not fulsome but nice' on a little silver salver. I should expect him to give me the frosty mitt.”

This expression struck me as being so funny that I burst out laughing, though I had to stop and think for a second before I could quite see what Mr. Doremus really meant; but I wouldn't forget my point in a laugh.

”Perhaps it wouldn't do to offer money,” I went on. ”Suppose we got up a subscription to buy him a second-cla.s.s pa.s.sage for the rest of the way. That would show appreciation, wouldn't it?”

”It would,” replied Mr. Doremus, gravely, ”and if you'll start the subscription, Lady Betty, it'll go like wildfire.”

”Very well, then, I will,” said I. ”Though I'd rather someone else did it.”

”It wouldn't be so popular from any other quarter. I'll help you. We'll go floating around together and pa.s.s the plate; and if you like, I'll do the talking.”

I agreed to this, and if I'd thought about it at all, I should have supposed that Mrs. Ess Kay would be as pleased as Punch with such an arrangement, because Mr. Doremus, as a relative of Mrs. Van der Windt's, is the only man on board to whom she makes herself agreeable.

It appears that he has started several fas.h.i.+ons in New York, the most important being to drive in some park they have there, without a hat.

But probably if the truth were known, he lost it, like the fox that tried to make his friends chop off their tails.

Mrs. Ess Kay had gone to her stateroom soon after lunch, as the motion of the s.h.i.+p had given her a headache, and I didn't happen to be near Sally Woodburn; so I said ”yes” to Mr. Doremus on the impulse of the moment, without stopping to think whether I ought to ask permission first.