"Do you love Joe,--Rita;--love him enough to marry him if I go out for him?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Get him, George. I love Joe. I always loved him."

In that moment, I made up my mind.

"If we come back, little woman," I cried, "it will be down there at the end of the Island. Run home;--get grand-dad and the others in some boats. It isn't so bad down there. Watch out for us.

"If I don't come back, Rita,--dear, little Rita----"

I took her face in my hands and pressed my lips on hers.

I ran from her, up over the cliffs, away to the far side of the horn, where the eddy made the sea quieter. I threw off my boots and superfluous clothing and sprang into the water. Out, out I plunged, and plunged again, keeping under water most of the time, until at last I got caught in the terrible rush three hundred yards straight out from the point.

I well knew the dreadful odds I was facing, yet I was unafraid. The sea was my home, almost as much as the land. I laughed at its buffeting. I defied it. What cared I? What had I to lose?--nothing!

And,--I might win Joe for Rita, and make her happy.

In the very spirit of my defiance, I was calling up forces to work and fight for me, forces that faint-heartedness and fear could never have conjured to their aid.

On,--on I battled,--going with the rush,--holding back a little,--and easing out, and out, all the time toward the Rock.

Half an hour pa.s.sed;--perhaps an hour,--for I lost count of time and distance in my struggling. But, at last, battered and half-smothered, yet still crying defiance to everything, I found myself rising with a mountainous sea and bearing straight upon The Ghoul. As I was lifted up, I strained my eyes toward the teeth of the rock.

Joe Clark,--that Hercules of men,--was still hanging on desperately:--no hope in his heart, but loth as ever to admit defeat, even to the elements.

With tremendous force, I was thrown forward. As the wave broke, I flashed past Joe in the mad rush of water. I grabbed blindly, feeling sure I should miss,--for it was a thousand chances to one,--but I was stopped up violently. I tightened my clutch in desperation. I pulled myself up, and clasped both hands round the ledge of the rock, clinging to it precariously, my nails torn almost from my fingers. My hands were touching Joe's. My face came up close to his. Almost he lost his hold at the suddenness of my uncanny appearing.

He shouted to me in defiance, and it surprised me how easily I could hear him, despite the hiss and roar of the waters. I could hear him more easily than I had heard Rita on the beach at Neil Andrews', so long, long ago.

"My G.o.d! Bremner,--where did you come from? What d'ye want?" he shouted.

"I want you, Joe," I cried, right into his ear. "Rita sent me for you,--will you come?"

"It ain't no good," he replied despairingly;--"n.o.body gets off'n this h.e.l.l alive."

"But we shall," I yelled. "Rita wants you. She loves you, Joe. Isn't that worth a try, anyway?"

"You bet!" he cried, as the water dashed over his face, "but how?"

I screamed into his ear again.

"Let go when I shout. Drop on your back. After that, don't move for your life. Leave the rest to me. Don't mind if you go under. It's our only chance."

He nodded his head.

I waited for an abatement of the surge.

"Now!" I yelled, as a great, unbroken swell came along.

Away we whirled on top of it; past the side of The Ghoul like bobbing corks,--into the rip and race of the tide,--sometimes above the water, most of the time under it,--gasping,--choking,--fighting,--then away,--in great heaving throws, from that churning death.

How brave Joe was! and how trusting! Not a struggle did he make in that awful ordeal. He lay pliable and lightly upon me, as I floated up the Bay,--or wherever the current might be taking us. But there was only one direction with that flowing tide, after we had pa.s.sed The Ghoul, and I knew it was into the Bay. So quiet did Joe lie, that I began to think the life had gone out of him. But I could do nothing for him; nothing but try, whenever possible, to keep his head and my own out of the sea.

How long I struggled, I cannot tell. My arms and legs moved mechanically. I took the battering and the submerging as a matter of course. A pleasing lethargy settled over my brain and the terror of it all went from me.

When twenty minutes, or twenty years, might have flown, my head crashed against something hard. I turned quickly. I seized at the obstruction. It was a log from some broken boom. I threw my arm around it for support, then I caught Joe up and pulled his hand over it. In a second, he was all life. He clutched the log tightly, and hung on.

Thus, he and I together,--enemies till then, but friends against our mutual foe, the storm,--floated to safety and life.

I remember hearing voices on the waters and seeing, in a blur, Joe's giant body being raised into a boat. But, of myself, I remember not a thing.

Later on, they told me that, as soon as they hoisted Joe, I let go my hold on the log, as if I had no further interest in anything, no more use for life.

But old Andrew Clark was too quick for me. He caught me by the arm and clung on, just as I was going down.

And it was Joe Clark,--despite all he had gone through,--who carried me in his great strong arms from the beach to his grand-dad's cottage, crooning over me like a mother. It was Joe who fed me with warm liquids. It was Joe I saw when I opened my eyes once more to the material world.

"Shake hands, old man," he said brokenly, "if mine ain't too black.

Used to think I hated you, George. I ain't hatin' anything or anybody no more. You're the whitest man I know, Bremner, and you got me beat six days for Sunday."

CHAPTER XXVI

"Her Knight Proved True"

I was leaning idly against a post on my front veranda, watching the sun dancing and scintillating on the sea; listening the while to the birds in the woods behind me as they quarrelled and fought over the choosing of their lady-loves for the coming spring.

I was thinking of how the time had flown and of the many things that had happened since first I set foot in Golden Crescent, not so much as a short year ago.

Already a month had slipped by since I had wished good-bye to little Rita,--happy, merry, little, laughing Rita,--and her great, handsome giant of a husband, Joe; holding the end of the rope ladder for them, from my rowing boat, as they clambered aboard the _Siwash_, at the start of their six months' honeymoon trip of pleasure and sight-seeing.

What an itinerary that big, boyish fellow had arranged for the sweet, little woman he had won!--Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, all the big cities in the States right through to New York, then back again over the Great Lakes, across the Western Prairies, up over the Rockies and home:--home to the pretty bungalow that was already well on the way toward completion, out there on the promontory just below their grand-dad's place.

A warning toot from the _Cloochman_ awoke me from my reveries. I ran to my small boat and pulled out as she came speeding into the Bay.

There was little cargo, and less mail--one single letter. But what a wonder of wonders that letter was! It was for me, and, oh! how my heart beat! It was in the handwriting I had seen only a few months before but had learned to know so well.

I tore the envelope into pieces in my haste to be at the contents.

Dear George, it ran,

Reta and Joe (Mr. & Mrs. Clark) called to see me. If you only could see the happiness of them, how you would rejoice! knowing that you had brought it all about.

Every day from now, look for me at the little cottage across the rustic bridge; for, some day, I shall be there. Golden Crescent is ever in my thoughts.

Good-bye for the present, my brave and very gallant gentleman.