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Page 113
It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief--not love of life, but
love of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole--that was not so
bad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better than
where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather
than live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee.
"I'm thinking, laddie," he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow."
The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painful
rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. For
each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot--no more. What he would
not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy.
Halfway up, he clung, exhausted.
The boy leaned down and held out his hand.
"I'll pull," he said. "Just hang on to me."
Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the
silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He was
pulling indeed.
"About--that airtrunk," he managed to say--"I'm--sorry, sir!"
* * * * *
The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection. In the
Quartermaster's boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on her
cheeks. The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired with
living.
It was the girl, after all, who spied them--two figures--one inert
and almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing a
blue face and two desperate eyes above a ship's lifebelt.
The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, pale
and tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart. His
eyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache.
He had died and lived again, and what was past was past.
"I thought," said the woman tremulously--"all night I thought that
you----"
The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry. His
eyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languid
youngster curled up at his feet, asleep. The woman drew back--as
from an intrusion.
As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up. His eyes
met the Chief's, and between them passed such a look of
understanding as made for the two one world, one victory!
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love Stories, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
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