How thickly it had gathered! Long, curling, tangling stuff!

Several times, I had to change my position quickly in order to avoid being caught among the great, waving tendrils which, lower down, interweaved like the meshes of a gigantic net.

I stayed under water as long as I dared, then with lungs afire I had to come to the surface for air.

Desperately, I started again.

I swam several yards nearer to the rocks and sank once more. This time, my groping hands found what they were seeking. Far down, almost at the bottom of the sea, the body of Miss Grant lay.

I pa.s.sed my hands over her. Her head and arms were clear of the awful tangle, but both her legs were enmeshed.

Fighting warily and working like one possessed, I tore at the slithering ropes and bands that bound her. I got one foot and leg clear, then, with bursting lungs I attacked the other.

It seemed as if I should never get her free. How I fought and struggled with that d.a.m.nable sea-growth! fearing and fearing afresh that I would have to make to the surface for air, or drown where I was.

As I worked frantically, I grew defiant, and decided to drown rather than leave the girl who had already been far too long under water.

My head throbbed and hammered. My senses reeled and rallied, and reeled again as I tore and struggled. Then, when hope was leaving me, I felt something snap. I caught at the body beside me and I drifted upward, and upward;--I did not know how or where.

The thought flashed through me;--this is the last. It is all over.

I opened my throat to allow the useless carbonised air to escape. I was conscious of the act and knew its consequences:--a flood of salt water in my lungs, then suffocation and death. But I did not care now.

My lungs deflated, then--oh! delicious ecstasy!--instead of water, I drew to my dying body,--air; reviving, life-giving, life-sustaining oxygen.

I panted and gasped, as life ran through my veins. Blood danced in my thumping heart. I caught at my reeling senses. I clutched, like a miser, at the body I held.

I struggled, and opened my eyes.

I was on the surface of the water,--afloat. In my arms, I held the lady I had wrested from the deadly seaweed.

How well I knew, even in those awful moments, that I was not the cause of that wonderful rescue. I was present,--true,--but it was the decreeing of the great, living, but Unseen Power, who had further use for both of us in the bright old world, who had more work for us to perform ere he called us to our last accounting.

Well I knew then that every moment of time was more precious than ordinary hours of reckoning, yet I dared not hurry with my burden across that short strip of water, lest we should again become entangled.

Foot by foot, I worked my way, until I was clear of the seaweed, then I kicked forcefully for the sh.o.r.e, and with my unconscious, perhaps dead, burden in my arms, I scrambled up the face of the rocks and into the house.

"Quick! For G.o.d's sake! Hot water,--blankets!" I cried to Miss Grant's semi-petrified companion.

She stood and looked at me in horror and bewilderment. Then I remembered that my shouting was in vain, for she was stone-deaf.

But this good old lady's helplessness was short-lived.

"Lay her down," she cried; "I know how to handle this. If there's a spark of life in her I can bring her round."

I laid the limp form on the bed, on top of the spotless linen.

As I did so, I looked upon the pale face, with its eyes closed and the brine rolling in drops over those long, golden eyelashes; then upon the glorious sun-kissed hair now water-soaked and tangled.

I cried in my soul, "Oh, G.o.d!--is this the end and she so beautiful."

Already the elderly lady had commenced first aid, in a businesslike way. It was something I knew only a little about, so I went into the kitchen in a perspiring terror of suspense,--and I stood there by the stove, ready to be of a.s.sistance at any moment, should I be called.

After what seemed hours of waiting, I heard a moan, and through the moaning came a voice, sweet but pitiful, and breathing of agony.

"Oh! why did you bring me back? Why did you not let me die?"

Again followed a long waiting, with the soothing voice of Miss Grant's able companion talking to her patient as she wrought with her.

There was a spell of dreadful nausea, but when it came I knew the worst was over.

The elderly lady came to the door, with a request for a hot-water bottle, which I got for her with alacrity.

At last she came out to me, and her kindly face was beaming.

"My dear, good boy," she said, as tears trickled down her cheeks, "she is lying peacefully and much better. In an hour or two, she will be up and around. Would you care to see her, just to put your mind at ease?"

"Indeed I would," I responded.

She led the way into the room, and there on the bed lay Miss Grant,--breathing easily,--alive,--life athrob in her veins.

A joyful reaction overwhelmed me, for, no matter how humble had been my part, I had been chosen to help to save her.

As I stood by her, her eyes opened;--great, light-brown eyes, bright and agleam as of molten gold. They roved the room, then they rested on me.

"What!" she groaned, "you still here? Oh!--go away,--go away."

My heart sank within me and my face flushed with confusion.

I might have understood that what she said was merely the outpouring of an overpowering weakness which was mingling the mental pictures focussed on the young lady's mind;--but I failed to think anything but that she had a natural distaste for my presence and was not, even now, grateful for the a.s.sistance I had rendered.

With my head bowed, I walked to the door.

Mrs. Malmsbury,--for that was the elderly lady's name,--came to me.

She had not heard, but she had surmised.

"Oh! Mr. Bremner,--if my dear Mary has said anything amiss to you, do not be offended, for she is hardly herself yet. Why!--she is only newly back from the dead."

She held out her hand to me and I took it gratefully. But as I walked over to my quarters and dressed myself, the feeling of resentment in my heart did not abate; and I vowed then to myself that I would think of Mary Grant no more; that I would avoid her when I could and keep strictly to my own, beloved, masculine, bachelor pursuits and to the pathway I had mapped out for myself.

CHAPTER XVII

Good Medicine

The Rev. William Auld was due to visit Golden Crescent that afternoon.