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Page 50
"To be sure. Hurrah for you!"
Hilda grasped the canoe with her left hand and tried to swim with
her right. She could do little, however, against the furious
battling of wind and wave; and Captain Roger set his teeth, and
wondered whether he was going to be beaten this time. "I won't!"
he said aloud to the storm; and shook his head, lion-like, and
braced his strong shoulders, and swam on grimly. A few moments of
silent, breathless fighting, the wind screeching, like Bedlam
loose, the foam driving and hissing, the lightning blazing,
incessant, maddening.
Could they reach the shore? Hildegarde asked herself. Was this
only prolonging the agony, dragging this brave man to death with
her, on her account? If he were not hampered with her, he would
have been safe on shore before this. If she were a girl in a
story-book, she would loose her hold now, and sink silently; but
she was not a girl in a story-book. She was a very real Hilda
Grahame, and she did not want to sink. And how could our poor
Hilda know that the Merryweather obstinacy was roused, and that
Roger meant to save her and himself, and the canoe, too, if he had
to swim across the lake to do it? But now she heard him cry out,
in a joyful tone: "Courage, little girl! here we are, all right!"
Next moment,--oh, joy! oh, wonder past belief! she felt the ground
beneath her feet. She was walking, standing upright on the good,
solid, blessed earth. The canoe touched bottom, grazed, floated
again, then grounded gently and was still.
"Shake yourself as well as you can," said Roger, "while I haul her
up. So, now then! under this, and here we are!"
In the turn of a hand he hauled the canoe up on the sand, turned
it over, and drew Hildegarde beneath the shelter. A clump of
bushes broke the force of the wind, so they could breathe in
peace, without having to fight for every breath.
For a few minutes they sat in silence, panting, dripping, gazing
at each other with dilated eyes. Their thoughts were utterly
irrelevant, as thoughts are apt to be after a great crisis. Roger
was thinking that a pretty face looked much prettier wet than dry,
and compared apples and flowers; Hildegarde wondered if Saint
Bernard dogs could swim. "Because Newfoundlands are black, you
know," she found herself saying aloud in an explanatory tone.
"I beg your pardon!" said Roger, remorsefully. "I--I am afraid you
are very wet."
Hildegarde felt that she must either cry or laugh, so she laughed.
"If it were not for you, Captain, I should not be alive now. I
should have gone down, down,--and the water was so black. Was it
ever anything but black in that place?" Her voice shook, but she
pulled herself together instantly. "Why do you look troubled,
Captain?" she asked. "The island is solid, isn't it?"
"You are so wet!" said Roger again, more ruefully than before.
"No wetter than you!" said Hilda, with a little laugh. Indeed,
they were both streaming with water, and looked like a merman and
mermaid very much out of their element.
"I? Oh, I never know whether I am wet or dry. But it is different
for you; you will take cold, or--or something, won't you?"
"You are afraid I shall melt?" asked Hildegarde. She stooped down
and gathered her skirt together, wringing little floods of water
from it. "No, I don't think I shall melt, really, Captain. Do I
look as if I were melting?"
"You look--" began Roger, and stopped suddenly, and then wondered
why he stopped, and told himself he was an ass.
"Speaking of melting, reminds me," he said, laughing. He felt in
his pockets, and produced a small parcel. "I hope this is not
melted. No, it is all right. Have some chocolate, and let us make
merry on our desert island! See! the worst of the squall is over.
It is lightening already; I can see the nearest island."
"Yes, and the water begins to show grey, instead of all black and
white. But has this really been nothing more than a squall,
Captain Roger?"
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