Part 14 (1/2)

The girl had grown a little paler, and her hands trembled on the helm, but she answered without hesitation: ”Don't be longer than you can help--but I understand.”

She showed a fine intelligence and a perfect self-command, or our voyage might have ended abruptly; so the reefing was accomplished, and I resumed the helm. Meanwhile, however, we had drifted well out into the lake, and a few minutes of sailing proved that under her reduced canvas the boat would not beat back to the windward sh.o.r.e. The figures among the boulders had faded into the deepening gloom, but, a.s.suming a cheerfulness I did not feel, I said: ”It is quite impossible to return, and as it is growing too late to look for a safe landing or path through the bush, we must head for home and send back horses for the others. It will be a fair wind.”

”I was afraid so,” said the girl with a s.h.i.+ver. ”But I hope we shall not be very long on the way. We spent five hours coming.”

I knew we should travel at a pace approaching a steamer's, provided the craft could be kept from filling; but, enlarging upon the former point, I tried to conceal the latter possibility, as I put the helm up; and the craft, rising upright, but commencing to roll horribly, raced away down-wind towards open water. Once out of the point's shelter, short but angry waves raced white behind her, for one may find sufficient turmoil of waters when a fresh gale sweeps the Canadian lakes. The rolling grew wilder, the long boom splashed heavily into the white upheavals that surged by on each side, and our progress became a series of upward rushes and swoops, until at times I feared the craft would run her bows under and go down bodily. Once I caught my companion glancing over the stern, and, knowing how ugly oncoming waves appear when they heave up behind a running vessel, I laid a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her head aside.

”There! You must look only that way, and tell me if you see any islands across our course,” I said.

It was practically dark now, but I could distinguish the whiteness of her wet face, and see her s.h.i.+ver violently. My jacket was spongy, I had nothing to wrap her in, but she looked so wet and pitiful that I drew her towards me and slipped a dripping arm protectingly about her.

Lucille Haldane made no demur. The wild rolling, the flying spray, and the rush of short tumbling ridges must have been sufficiently terrifying, and perhaps she found the contact rea.s.suring.

One hand was all I needed. There was now nothing any una.s.sisted man could do except keep the craft straight before wind and sea, but it was quite sufficient for one who had lost much of his dexterity with the tiller, and at times the boat twisted on a white crest in imminent peril of rolling over. Worse than all, the waves that smote the flat stern commenced to splash on board, and the water inside the boat rose rapidly. Already the floorings were floating, and I dare not for a second loose the tiller. It was Lucille Haldane who solved the difficulty.

”Is not all that water getting dangerous?” she asked, with chattering teeth; and, knowing her keenness, I saw there was no use attempting to hide the fact.

”Why did you not tell me so earlier?” she continued. ”It is only right that I should do my share, and I can at least throw some of it out.”

”You are not fit for such work, and must sit still. At this pace we shall see the lights of Leyland's house soon,” I said, tightening my hold on her; but the girl shook off my grasp.

”I am not so helpless that I cannot make an effort to do what is so necessary,” she said. ”Let me go, Mr. Ormesby, or I shall never forgive you. Where is the bailer?”

I pointed to it, and even in face of the necessity it hurt me to see her alternately kneeling in the water that surged to and fro and trying to hold herself upright while she raised and emptied the heavy bucket.

Often she upset its contents over herself or me, and several times a lurch flung her cruelly against the coaming; but she persevered with undiminished courage until she stumbled in a savage roll and struck her head. Then she clung to the coaming, the water draining from her, and, not daring to move from the tiller, I could do nothing but growl anathemas upon the boat's owner, until the girl sank down in the stern sheets beside me.

”I must rest a little,” she said. ”But what were you saying, Mr.

Ormesby?”

”Only that I should like to hang the man who invented this unhandy rig, and Caryl for tempting you on board such a craft,” I answered, hoping she had not heard the whole of my remarks. ”You poor child, it is shameful that you should have to do such work; and, whatever happens, you shall not try again.”

Her tresses, released from whatever bound them, streamed in the wind about her, and she seemed to shrink a little from me as she struggled with them. ”It is not Caryl's fault. I clumsily let the rope go when I was pulling the boat in, and as it is some little time since I was a child, I do not care to be treated as one. Have I not done my best?” she asked.

”You have done gallantly; more than many men unused to seamans.h.i.+p--Caryl, for instance--could. All this is due to his stupidity,” I answered; and fancied there was a trace of resentment in her voice as she said: ”Poor Ted! He is brave enough, at least. I know he cannot swim, and yet he was about to plunge into deep water when you stopped him.”

It appeared wholly ridiculous, but, even then, Lucille Haldane's defense of Caryl irritated me. ”He is responsible for all you are suffering, and I can't forgive him for it. Was that not rather the action of a lunatic?” I answered shortly.

A wave, which, breaking upon the flat stern, deluged my shoulders and drenched my companion afresh, cut short the colloquy; but I caught sight of a faint twinkle ahead, and restrained her with a wet hand when she would have resumed the bailing. It was also by gentle force, for this time she resisted, that I drew her down beside me so that I partly s.h.i.+elded her from the spray, and the water came in as it willed as we drove onwards through thick obscurity. Still, the light rose higher ahead, and I strained my eyes to catch the first loom of Leyland's island. Large boulders studded the approach to it, and we might come to grief if we struck one of them.

It was now blowing viciously hard, the boat, half-buried in a white smother, would scarcely steer, and the bright light from a window ahead beat into my eyes, bewildering my vision. I could, however, dimly make out pines looming behind it, and the beat of yeasty surges, which warned me it would be risky to attempt a landing on that beach. There would be shelter on the leeward side of the island, but a glance at the balloon-like curves of the lifting mainsail showed that we could not clear its end upon the course we were sailing. We must jibe, or swing the mainsail over, which might result in a capsize.

”I want your help, Miss Haldane. Go forward and loose the rope you will find on your right-hand side near the mast,” I said; and as the girl obeyed, the light shone more fully upon the dripping boat. I had a momentary vision of several dark figures on the veranda, and then, while I held my breath, saw only the slight form of the girl, with draggled dress and wet hair streaming, swung out above the whiteness of rus.h.i.+ng foam as she wrenched at the halliard, which had fouled. Then the head of the sail swung down, and as she came back panting, the steering demanded all my attention.

”Hold fast to the coaming here,” I said, as, dragging with might and main at the sheet, I put the tiller up.

The craft twisted upon her heel, the sail swung aloft, and then, while the sheet rasped through my fingers, chafing the skin from them, there was a heavy crash as the boom lurched over. The boat swayed wildly under its impetus, buried one side deep, and a shout, which might have been a cry of consternation, reached me faintly. Then she shook herself free, and reeled away into the blackness on a different course.

The head of the island swept by, and we shot into smoother water with a spit of s.h.i.+ngle ahead, on which I ran the craft ash.o.r.e, and it was with sincere relief I felt the shock of her keel upon the bottom. Lucille Haldane said something I did not hear while she lay limp and wet and silent in my arms, as, floundering nearly waist-deep, I carried her ash.o.r.e and then towards a path which led to the house. The night was black, the way uneven, but perhaps because I was partly dazed I did not set down my burden. She had helped me bravely, and it was only now, when the peril had pa.s.sed, I knew how very fearful I had been for her safety.

Indeed, it was hard to realize she was yet free from danger, and in obedience to some unreasoning instinct I still held her fast, until she slipped from my grasp. A few minutes later a light twinkled among the trees, voices reached us, and Haldane, followed by several others, came up with a lantern.