"Don't be alarmed," said Leslie quietly; "I dare say it is like one of
the zorns yonder, only the mouth is too narrow for a boat."
"But it is so foolish," said Louise, giving him a grateful look.
"Yes, but he swims so easily and well, there is nothing to mind. What
are you going to do, Mr Pradelle?"
"Work the boat close up so as to help him," said Pradelle shortly.
"No, don't do that. We have had one escape from a capsize. We must
keep out here in deep water."
Pradelle frowned.
"I think I know what I'm about, sir," he said sharply; "do you suppose I
am going to sit here when my friend may be in danger?"
"I have no doubt you know what you are about in London, sir," said
Leslie quietly, "but this is not a pavement in the Strand, and it is not
safe to take the boat closer."
Pradelle was about to make some retort, but Louise interposed.
"Try if you can get nearer the mouth of that dreadful place, Mr
Leslie," she said, "I am getting terribly alarmed."
Leslie seated himself, took the oars, turned the boat, and backed slowly
and cautiously in, holding himself ready to pull out again at the
slightest appearance of danger. For the sea rushed against the rocky
barrier with tremendous force, while even on this calm day the swing and
wash and eddy amongst the loose rocks was formidable.
By skilful management Leslie backed the boat to within some thirty feet
of the opening; but the position was so perilous that he had to pull out
for a few yards to avoid a couple of rocks, which in the movement of the
clear water seemed to be rising toward them from time to time, and
coming perilously near.
Then he shouted, but there was no answer. He shouted again and again,
but there was no reply, and a chill of horror, intensifying from moment
to moment, came upon all.
"Harry! Harry!" cried Louise, now raising her voice, as Madelaine crept
closer to her and clutched her hand.
But there was no reply. No sound but the rush and splash and hiss of
the waters as they struck the rocks, and came back broken from the
attack.
"What folly!" muttered Leslie, with his face growing rugged. Then
quickly, "I don't think you need feel alarmed; I dare say he has swum in
for some distance, and our voices do not reach him. Stop a moment."
He suddenly remembered a little gold dog-whistle at his watch-chain, and
raising it to his lips he blew long and shrilly, till the ear-piercing
note echoed along the cliff, and the gulls came floating lazily overhead
and peering wonderingly down.
"I say, Harry, old man, come out now," cried Pradelle, and then rising
from his seat, he placed his hands on either side of his lips, and
uttered the best imitation he could manage of the Australian call,
"Coo-ey! Coo-ey!"
There were echoes and whispers, and the rush and hiss of the water.
Then two or three times over there came from out of the opening a
peculiar dull hollow sound, such as might be made by some great animal
wallowing far within.
"Mr Leslie," said Louise, in a low appealing voice, "what shall we do?"
"Oh, wait a few minutes, my dear Miss Vine," interposed Pradelle,
hastily. "He'll be out directly. I assure you there is no cause for
alarm."
Leslie frowned, but his face coloured directly, for his heart gave a
great throb.
Louise paid not the slightest heed to Pradelle's words, and kept her
limpid eyes fixed appealingly upon Leslie's, as if she looked to him for
help.
"I hardly know what to do," he said in a low business-like tone. "I
dare not leave you without some one to manage the boat, or I would go
in."
"Yes, yes, pray go!" she said excitedly. "Never mind us."
"We could each take an oar and keep the boat here," said Madelaine
quickly; "we can both row."
"No, really; I'll manage the boat," said Pradelle.
"I think you had better leave it to the ladies, Mr Pradelle," said
Leslie coldly. "They know the coast."
"Well really, sir, I--"
"This is no time for interference," cried Madelaine, with a flush of
excitement, and she caught hold of an oar. "Louie dear, quick!"
The other oar was resigned, and as Leslie passed aft, he gave Louise one
quick look, reading in her face, as he believed, trust and thankfulness
and then dread.
"No, no, Mr Leslie, I hardly dare let you go," she faltered.
_Plash_!
The boat was rolling and dancing on the surface, relieved of another
burden, and Duncan Leslie was swimming toward the opening.
The two girls dipped their oars from time to time, for their sea-side
life had given them plenty of experience of the management of a boat;
and as Pradelle sat looking sulky and ill-used, they watched the swimmer
as he too timed his movements, so that he gradually approached, and then
in turn was sucked right into the weird water-way, which might lead
another into some terrible chasm from which there was no return.
A low hoarse sigh, as if one had whispered while suffering pain the word
"Hah!" and then with dilated eyes the two girls sat watching the black
opening for what seemed a terrible interval of time, before, to their
intense relief, there came a shout of laughter, followed by the
appearance of Leslie, who swam out looking stern, and closely followed
by Harry.
"It is not the sort of fun I can appreciate, Miss Vine," said Leslie,
turning as he reached the stern of the boat.
"Well, I know that," cried Harry mockingly. "Scotchmen never can
appreciate a joke."
"There, ladies, what did I tell you?" cried Pradelle triumphantly.
There was no reply, and the visitor from London winced, for his presence
in the boat seemed to be thoroughly _de trop_.
"Miss Vine--Miss Van Heldre," said Leslie quietly, "will you change
places now? Get right aft, and we will climb in over the bows."
"But the boat?" faltered Louise, whose emotion was so great that she
could hardly trust herself to speak.
"We'll see to that," said Leslie. "Your brother and I will row back."
It did not seem to trouble him now that the two girls took their places,
one on either side of Pradelle, while as soon as they were seated he
climbed in streaming with water, seating himself on the gunwale, Harry
climbing in on the other side.
"Harry, how could you?" cried Louise, now, with an indignant look.
"Easily enough," he said, seating himself calmly. "Thought you'd lost
me?"
He looked at Madelaine as he spoke, but she turned her face away, biting
her lips, and it was Louise who replied,
"I did not think you could have been so cruel."
"Cruel be hanged!" he retorted. "Thought I'd find out whether I was of
any consequence after all. You people seem to say I'm of none. Did
they begin to cry, Vic?"
"Oh, I'm not going to tell tales," said Pradelle with a smile.
"I should have had a pipe in there, only my matches had got wet."
"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pradelle, and the mirth sounded strange there
beneath the rocks, and a very decided hiss seemed to come from out of
the low rugged opening.
"Try again, Vic," said Harry mockingly; but his friend made no reply,
for he was staring hard and defiantly at Leslie, who, as he handled his
oar, gave him a calmly contemptuous look that galled him to the quick.
"Ready, Leslie?" said Harry. "Yes."
The oars dipped, Leslie pulling stroke, and the boat shot out from its
dangerous position among the rocks, rose at a good-sized swelling wave,
topped it, seemed to hang as in a balance for a moment, and then glided
down and went forward in response to a few vigorous strokes.
"Never mind the tiller, Vic," said Harry; "let it swing. We can manage
without that. All right, girls?"
There was no reply.
"Sulky, eh? Well, I'd a good mind to stop in. Sorry you got so wet,
Leslie." Still no reply.
"Cheerful party, 'pon my word!" said Harry with a contemptuous laugh.
"Hope no one objects to my smoking."
He looked hard at Madelaine, but she avoided his gaze, and he uttered a
short laugh.
"Got a cigar to spare, Vic?"
"Yes, clear boy, certainly."
"Pass it along then, and the lights. Hold hard a minute, Leslie."
The latter ceased rowing as Pradelle handed a cigar and the matches to
his friend.
"Will you take one, Mr Leslie?" said Pradelle.
"Thanks, no," said Leslie quietly, and to the would-be donor's great
relief, for he had only two left. Then once more the rowing was
resumed, Pradelle striking a match to light a cigar for himself, and
then recollecting himself and throwing the match away.
"Well, we're enjoying ourselves!" cried Harry after they had proceeded
some distance in silence. "I say, Vic, say something!"
Pradelle had been cudgelling his brains for the past ten minutes, but
the more he tried to find something _a propos_ the more every pleasant
subject seemed to recede.
In fact it would have been difficult just then for the most accomplished
talker to have set all present at their ease, for Harry's folly had
moved his sister so that she feared to speak lest she should burst into
a hysterical fit of weeping, and Madelaine, as she sat there with her
lips compressed, felt imbued with but one desire, which took the form of
the following words:
"Oh, how I should like to box his ears!"
"Getting dry, Leslie?" said Harry after a long silence.
"Not very," was the reply.
"Ah, well, there's no fear of our catching cold pulling like this."
"Not the slightest," said Leslie coldly; then there was another period
of silence, during which the water seemed to patter and slap the bows of
the boat, while the panorama of rock and foam and glittering cascade, as
the crags were bathed by the Atlantic swell, and it fell back broken,
seemed perfectly fresh and new as seen from another point of view.
At last Harry, after trying two or three times more to start a
conversation, said shortly--
"Well, this is my last day at home, and I think I ought to say, `Thank
goodness!' This is coming out for a pleasant sail, and having to row
back like a galley-slave! Oh, I beg your pardon, ladies! All my
mistake. I am highly complimented. All this glumminess is because I am
going away."
He received such a look of reproach that he uttered an angry ejaculation
and began to pull so hard that Leslie had to second his movement to keep
the boat's head straight for the harbour, whose farther point soon after
came in sight, with two figures on the rocks at the end.
"Papa along with Uncle Luke," said Louise softly.
"Eh?" said Harry sharply; "the old man still fishing?"
"Yes," said Louise rather coldly; "and, Maddy, dear, is not that Mr Van
Heldre?"
Madelaine shaded her eyes from the western, sun, where it was sinking
fast, and nodded.
"Where shall we land you?" said Harry sulkily now, "at the point, or
will you go up the harbour?"
"If there is not too much sea on, at the point," said Louise gravely.
"Oh, I dare say we can manage that without wetting your plumes," said
the young man contemptuously; and after another ten minutes' pulling
they reached the harbour mouth and made for the point, where Uncle Luke
stood leaning on his rod watching the coming boat, in company with a
tall grey man with refined features, who had taken off the straw hat he
wore to let the breeze play through his closely cut hair, while from
time to time he turned to speak either to Uncle Luke or to the short
thick-set man who, with his pointed white moustache and closely clipped
peaked beard, looked in his loose holland blouse like a French officer
taking his vacation at the sea-side.
"Mind how you come," said the latter in a sharp, decided way. "Watch
your time, Leslie. Back in, my lad. Can you manage it, girls?"
"Oh, yes," they cried confidently.
"Sit still then till the boat's close in, then one at a time. You
first, my dear."
This to Louise, as he stepped actively down the granite rocks to a
narrow natural shelf, which was now bare, now several inches deep in
water.
"If we manage it cleverly we can get you ashore without a wetting."
The warnings were necessary, for the tide ran fast, and the Atlantic
swell made the boat rise and fall, smooth as the surface was.
"Now then," cried the French-looking gentleman, giving his orders as if
he were an officer in command, "easy, Harry Vine; back a little, Mr
Leslie. Be ready, Louie, my dear. That's it; a little more. I have
you. Bravo!"
The words came slowly, and with the latter there was a little action; as
he took the hands outstretched to him, when the boat nearly grazed the
rock, there was a light spring, the girl was on the narrow shelf, and
the boat, in answer to a touch of the oars, was half a dozen yards away,
rising and falling on the swell.
"Give me your hand, my dear," said the tall grey gentleman, leaning
down.
"Oh, I can manage, papa," she cried, and the next moment she was by his
side. Looking back, "Thank you, Mr Van Heldre," she said.
"Eh! All right, my child. Now, Maddy. Steady, my lads. Mind that
ledge; don't get her under there. Bravo! that's right. Now, my girl.
Well done!"
Madelaine leaped to his side, and was in turn assisted to the top, she
accepting the tall gentleman's help, while Uncle Luke, with his hands
resting on his rod, which he held with the butt on the rock, stood
grimly looking down at the boat.
"I think I'll land here," said Leslie. "You don't want my help with the
boat."
"Oh, no; we can manage," said Harry sourly; and Leslie gave up his oar
and leaped on to the rock as the boat was again backed in.
"That chap looks quite green," said Uncle Luke with a sneering laugh.
"Our London friend been poorly, Louie?"