Part 4 (1/2)

This time his feet plunged against something gratefully solid. He was dashed forward, still battling with the raging turmoil of water, and a second time he felt the same firm yet smooth surface. His dormant faculties awoke. It was sand. With frenzied desperation, buoyed now by the inspiring hope of safety, he fought his way onwards like a maniac.

Often he fell, three times did the backwash try to drag him to the swirling death behind, but he staggered blindly on, on, until even the tearing gale ceased to be laden with the suffocating foam, and his faltering feet sank in deep soft white sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH FRENZIED DESPERATION, BUOYED NOW BY THE INSPIRING HOPE OF SAFETY, HE FOUGHT HIS WAY ONWARD LIKE A MANIAC.]

Then he fell, not to rise again. With a last weak flicker of exhausted strength he drew the girl closely to him, and the two lay, clasped tightly together, heedless now of all things.

How long the man remained prostrate he could only guess subsequently.

The _Sirdar_ struck soon after daybreak and the sailor awoke to a hazy consciousness of his surroundings to find a shaft of suns.h.i.+ne flickering through the clouds banked up in the east. The gale was already pa.s.sing away. Although the wind still whistled with shrill violence it was more bl.u.s.tering than threatening. The sea, too, though running very high, had retreated many yards from the spot where he had finally dropped, and its surface was no longer scourged with venomous spray.

Slowly and painfully he raised himself to a sitting posture, for he was bruised and stiff. With his first movement he became violently ill. He had swallowed much salt water, and it was not until the spasm of sickness had pa.s.sed that he thought of the girl.

She had slipped from his breast as he rose, and was lying, face downwards, in the sand. The memory of much that had happened surged into his brain with horrifying suddenness.

”She cannot be dead,” he hoa.r.s.ely murmured, feebly trying to lift her.

”Surely Providence would not desert her after such an escape. What a weak beggar I must be to give in at the last moment. I am sure she was living when we got ash.o.r.e. What on earth can I do to revive her?”

Forgetful of his own aching limbs in this newborn anxiety, he sank on one knee and gently pillowed Iris's head and shoulders on the other.

Her eyes were closed, her lips and teeth firmly set--a fact to which she undoubtedly owed her life, else she would have been suffocated--and the pallor of her skin seemed to be that terrible bloodless hue which indicates death. The stern lines in the man's face relaxed, and something blurred his vision. He was weak from exhaustion and want of food. For the moment his emotions were easily aroused.

”Oh, it is pitiful,” he almost whimpered. ”It cannot be!”

With a gesture of despair he drew the sleeve of his thick jersey across his eyes to clear them from the gathering mist. Then he tremblingly endeavored to open the neck of her dress and unclasp her corsets. He had a vague notion that ladies in a fainting condition required such treatment, and he was desperately resolved to bring Iris Deane back to conscious existence if it were possible. His task was rendered difficult by the waistband of her dress. He slipped out a clasp-knife and opened the blade.

Not until then did he discover that the nail of the forefinger on his right hand had been torn out by the quick, probably during his endeavors to grasp the unsteady support which contributed so materially to his escape. It still hung by a shred and hindered the free use of his hand. Without any hesitation he seized the offending nail in his teeth and completed the surgical operation by a rapid jerk.

Bending to resume his task he was startled to find the girl's eyes wide open and surveying him with shadowy alarm. She was quite conscious, absurdly so in a sense, and had noticed his strange action.

”Thank G.o.d!” he cried hoa.r.s.ely. ”You are alive.”

Her mind as yet could only work in a single groove.

”Why did you do that?” she whispered.

”Do what?”

”Bite your nail off!”

”It was in my way. I wished to cut open your dress at the waist. You were collapsed, almost dead, I thought, and I wanted to unfasten your corsets.”

Her color came back with remarkable rapidity. From all the rich variety of the English tongue few words could have been selected of such restorative effect.

She tried to a.s.sume a sitting posture, and instinctively her hands traveled to her disarranged costume.

”How ridiculous!” she said, with a little note of annoyance in her voice, which sounded curiously hollow. But her brave spirit could not yet command her enfeebled frame. She was perforce compelled to sink back to the support of his knee and arm.

”Do you think you could lie quiet until I try to find some water?” he gasped anxiously.

She nodded a childlike acquiescence, and her eyelids fell. It was only that her eyes smarted dreadfully from the salt water, but the sailor was sure that this was a premonition of a lapse to unconsciousness.

”Please try not to faint again,” he said. ”Don't you think I had better loosen these things? You can breathe more easily.”