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Page 12
The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in emergencies, and
little time was lost about help and lights. Yet when all was done which
could be done, we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand, and
looked in one another's faces helplessly. Harrie's little boat was gone.
The sea thundered out beyond the bar. The fog hung, a dead weight, upon
a buried world. Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two in a ghostly way,
throwing a pale white light back upon our faces and the weeds and bits
of wreck under our feet.
The tide had turned. We put out into the surf not knowing what else to
do, and called for Harrie; we leaned on our oars to listen, and heard
the water drip into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar; we
called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream.
"_This_ yere's wastin' valooable time," said Hansom, decidedly. I
forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help
us. Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,--a clear-eyed,
open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as
instinctively as a rheumatic man turns to the sun.
I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us that night. I have
confused memories of searching shore and cliffs and caves; of touching
at little islands and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo
which answered our shouting; of the look that settled little by little
about Dr. Sharpe's mouth; of the sobbing of the low wind; of the flare
of lanterns on gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed like
nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in the bottom of the
boat, and of wondering confusedly what they would do with my
travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw--I was the first to see
it--little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent
thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our
drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that
for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take
us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor's eyes when we should turn.
It was there that we heard the first cry.
"It's shoreward!" said Hansom.
"It is seaward!" cried the Doctor.
"It is behind us!" said I.
Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four
times in rapid succession,--hushing suddenly,--breaking into shrieks
like a frightened child's,--dying plaintively down.
We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took
the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about
it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our
left,--crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,--beckoning
us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly.
The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he
groped with them like a man struck blind.
"To die there,--in my very hearing,--without a chance--"
And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased.
He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a
little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:--
"It must be only for a moment, you know. We shall hear it again,--I am
quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!"
Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life,
snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with
slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little
disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning
just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up
for a moment to his cheek.
Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:--
"It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body."
"The WHAT?"
The poor little sparrow dropped from Dr. Sharpe's hand. He took a step
backward, scanned our faces, sat down dizzily, and fell over upon the
sand.
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