Part 23 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVII

AN EVENTFUL DAY

It was about eleven o'clock on a cloudy, unsettled morning when Nasmyth stood knee-deep in a swirling river-pool, holding a landing-net and watching Miss Hamilton, who stood on a neighbouring bank of s.h.i.+ngle with a light trout-rod in her hand. The rod was bent, and the thin line, which was drawn tense and rigid, ripped through the surface of the pool, while there was also a suggestion of tension in the pose of the girl's figure. She was gazing at the moving line, with a fine crimson in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes.

”Oh,” she cried, ”I'm afraid I'm going to lose it, after all.”

Nasmyth smiled rea.s.suringly. ”Keep the b.u.t.t well down, and your thumb upon the reel,” he continued. ”You have only to keep on a steady strain.”

A big silvery object broke the surface a dozen yards away, and then, while the reel clinked, went down again; but the line was moving towards Nasmyth now, and, in another minute or two, he flung a sharp warning at the girl as he made a sweep with the net. Then he floundered ash.o.r.e, dripping, with the gleaming trout, which he laid at her feet.

”You ran that fish very well,” he told her. ”In fact, there were one or two moments when I never expected you to hold it.”

The colour grew a little plainer in his companion's face, though whether this was due to his commendation or to elation at her own success was a question. As she had just caught her first big fish, it was, perhaps, the latter.

”Oh,” she said complacently, ”it isn't so very difficult after all.

But I wonder what can have become of the others of our party?”

It was at least an hour since Nasmyth had last seen their companions considerably lower down the river. He and Miss Hamilton had pushed on ahead of them into the Bush, which was a thing they had fallen into the habit of doing. The girl sat down on a boulder and seemed to be listening, but there was nothing to indicate the presence of any of the party. Except for the murmur of the river and the sighing among the pine-sprays high overhead, the Bush was very still, but it seemed to Nasmyth that there was more wind than there had been.

”I suppose we had better go back to them,” observed the girl. The manner in which she spoke conveyed the impression that she would have been more or less contented to stay where she was with him; but next moment she added: ”After all, they have the lunch with them, and it must have been seven o'clock when we breakfasted.”

”Yes,” said Nasmyth, ”I think it was. Still, until this minute I had quite forgotten it.”

”I certainly hadn't,” said Violet Hamilton. ”I don't think I ever had breakfast at seven o'clock in my life until this morning.”

The fact had its significance to Nasmyth. It was one of the many little things that emphasized the difference between his life and hers, but he brushed it out of his mind, and they went back together down the waterside. Their progress was slow, for there was no trail at all, and while they laboriously plodded over the s.h.i.+ngle, or crept in and out among the thickets, the wail of the breeze grew louder. Half an hour had pa.s.sed when the faint hoot of the _Tillic.u.m's_ whistle reached them among the trees.

”What can the skipper be whistling for?” asked the girl.

”I fancy the wind is setting insh.o.r.e moderately fresh, and he wants us to come off before it roughens the water,” said Nasmyth.

They went on as fast as possible after that, though it was remarkably rough travelling; but they saw no sign of their companions, and the whistle, which had shrieked again, was silent, which evidently meant that the gig had already gone off. When they reached the inlet the river fell into, and found only the _Tillic.u.m's_ dinghy lying on the s.h.i.+ngle, Nasmyth, looking down the lane of smooth green water somewhat anxiously, noticed that the sea was flecked with white. The _Tillic.u.m_, as he remembered, was also lying well out from the beach.

”We had better get off at once,” he said. ”The breeze is freshening, and this dinghy isn't very big.”

He helped the girl into the boat, and when he had thrust the little craft off sent her flying down the riband of sheltered water; but he set his lips and braced himself for an effort when they slid out past a point of froth-lapped s.h.i.+ngle. There was already a white-topped sea running, and the spray from the oar-blades and the dinghy's bows blew aft into his companion's face in stinging wisps as he drove the plunging craft over it. Now and then an odd bucketful of brine came in and hit him on the back, while Miss Hamilton, who commenced to get very wet, s.h.i.+vered and drew her feet up as the water gathered deeper in the bottom of the boat.

”I'm afraid I must ask you to throw some of that water out,” he said.

”There is a can to scoop it up with.”

The girl made an attempt to do so, but it was not surprising that in a few minutes, when the dinghy lurched viciously, she let the can slip from her fingers. Nasmyth set his lips tighter, and his face was anxious as he glanced over his shoulder. The sea was white-flecked between him and the _Tillic.u.m_, which lay rolling wildly farther down the beach, at least half a mile away. It already taxed all Nasmyth's strength to drive the dinghy off sh.o.r.e, and every sea that broke a little more sharply than the rest splashed into the boat. He held on for another few minutes, glancing over his shoulder and pulling cautiously, for it was evident that he might fill the dinghy up or roll her over if he failed to swing neatly over the crest of some tumbling comber. In spite of his efforts, a wave broke on board, and sitting ankle-deep in water, he waited until there was a slightly smoother patch in front of him, and then swung the dinghy round.

”I'm afraid we'll have to make for the beach,” he announced.

He would have preferred to head for the inlet, but that would have brought the little white seas, which were rapidly getting steeper, dangerously on her beam, and the thrust of one beneath her side probably would have been sufficient to turn the diminutive craft over.

He accordingly pulled straight for the beach before the wind, and the perspiration dripped from his set face as he strove to hold the dinghy straight, when, with the foam boiling white about her, she swung up on the crest of a comber. Once or twice Nasmyth glanced at Violet Hamilton rea.s.suringly, but she sat, half-crouching, against the transom, gazing forward, white in face, with her wet hair whipping about her. Nasmyth had not noticed it before, but her hat had evidently gone over. Speech was out of the question. He wanted all his breath, and recognized that it was not advisable to divert his attention for a moment from his task, for it depends very largely upon the man at the oars whether a diminutive dinghy keeps right side uppermost in any weight of breeze. Once or twice he risked a glance at the approaching land.

Sombre forest rolled down to the water's edge, and he could see that there was already a broad ribbon of frothy whiteness beneath it, while so far as he had noticed that beach consisted of rock ledges and very large boulders. It was about the last place he would have chosen to make a landing on, in a light and fragile dinghy.