CHAPTER XVII

AN EVENTFUL DAY

It was about eleven o'clock on a cloudy, unsettled morning when Nasmyth stood knee-deep in a swirling river-pool, holding a landing-net and watching Miss Hamilton, who stood on a neighbouring bank of shingle with a light trout-rod in her hand. The rod was bent, and the thin line, which was drawn tense and rigid, ripped through the surface of the pool, while there was also a suggestion of tension in the pose of the girl's figure. She was gazing at the moving line, with a fine crimson in her cheeks and a brightness in her eyes.

"Oh," she cried, "I'm afraid I'm going to lose it, after all."

Nasmyth smiled rea.s.suringly. "Keep the b.u.t.t well down, and your thumb upon the reel," he continued. "You have only to keep on a steady strain."

A big silvery object broke the surface a dozen yards away, and then, while the reel clinked, went down again; but the line was moving towards Nasmyth now, and, in another minute or two, he flung a sharp warning at the girl as he made a sweep with the net. Then he floundered ash.o.r.e, dripping, with the gleaming trout, which he laid at her feet.

"You ran that fish very well," he told her. "In fact, there were one or two moments when I never expected you to hold it."

The colour grew a little plainer in his companion's face, though whether this was due to his commendation or to elation at her own success was a question. As she had just caught her first big fish, it was, perhaps, the latter.

"Oh," she said complacently, "it isn't so very difficult after all.

But I wonder what can have become of the others of our party?"

It was at least an hour since Nasmyth had last seen their companions considerably lower down the river. He and Miss Hamilton had pushed on ahead of them into the Bush, which was a thing they had fallen into the habit of doing. The girl sat down on a boulder and seemed to be listening, but there was nothing to indicate the presence of any of the party. Except for the murmur of the river and the sighing among the pine-sprays high overhead, the Bush was very still, but it seemed to Nasmyth that there was more wind than there had been.

"I suppose we had better go back to them," observed the girl. The manner in which she spoke conveyed the impression that she would have been more or less contented to stay where she was with him; but next moment she added: "After all, they have the lunch with them, and it must have been seven o'clock when we breakfasted."

"Yes," said Nasmyth, "I think it was. Still, until this minute I had quite forgotten it."

"I certainly hadn't," said Violet Hamilton. "I don't think I ever had breakfast at seven o'clock in my life until this morning."

The fact had its significance to Nasmyth. It was one of the many little things that emphasized the difference between his life and hers, but he brushed it out of his mind, and they went back together down the waterside. Their progress was slow, for there was no trail at all, and while they laboriously plodded over the shingle, or crept in and out among the thickets, the wail of the breeze grew louder. Half an hour had pa.s.sed when the faint hoot of the _Tillic.u.m's_ whistle reached them among the trees.

"What can the skipper be whistling for?" asked the girl.

"I fancy the wind is setting insh.o.r.e moderately fresh, and he wants us to come off before it roughens the water," said Nasmyth.

They went on as fast as possible after that, though it was remarkably rough travelling; but they saw no sign of their companions, and the whistle, which had shrieked again, was silent, which evidently meant that the gig had already gone off. When they reached the inlet the river fell into, and found only the _Tillic.u.m's_ dinghy lying on the shingle, Nasmyth, looking down the lane of smooth green water somewhat anxiously, noticed that the sea was flecked with white. The _Tillic.u.m_, as he remembered, was also lying well out from the beach.

"We had better get off at once," he said. "The breeze is freshening, and this dinghy isn't very big."

He helped the girl into the boat, and when he had thrust the little craft off sent her flying down the riband of sheltered water; but he set his lips and braced himself for an effort when they slid out past a point of froth-lapped shingle. There was already a white-topped sea running, and the spray from the oar-blades and the dinghy's bows blew aft into his companion's face in stinging wisps as he drove the plunging craft over it. Now and then an odd bucketful of brine came in and hit him on the back, while Miss Hamilton, who commenced to get very wet, shivered and drew her feet up as the water gathered deeper in the bottom of the boat.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to throw some of that water out," he said.

"There is a can to scoop it up with."

The girl made an attempt to do so, but it was not surprising that in a few minutes, when the dinghy lurched viciously, she let the can slip from her fingers. Nasmyth set his lips tighter, and his face was anxious as he glanced over his shoulder. The sea was white-flecked between him and the _Tillic.u.m_, which lay rolling wildly farther down the beach, at least half a mile away. It already taxed all Nasmyth's strength to drive the dinghy off sh.o.r.e, and every sea that broke a little more sharply than the rest splashed into the boat. He held on for another few minutes, glancing over his shoulder and pulling cautiously, for it was evident that he might fill the dinghy up or roll her over if he failed to swing neatly over the crest of some tumbling comber. In spite of his efforts, a wave broke on board, and sitting ankle-deep in water, he waited until there was a slightly smoother patch in front of him, and then swung the dinghy round.

"I'm afraid we'll have to make for the beach," he announced.

He would have preferred to head for the inlet, but that would have brought the little white seas, which were rapidly getting steeper, dangerously on her beam, and the thrust of one beneath her side probably would have been sufficient to turn the diminutive craft over.

He accordingly pulled straight for the beach before the wind, and the perspiration dripped from his set face as he strove to hold the dinghy straight, when, with the foam boiling white about her, she swung up on the crest of a comber. Once or twice Nasmyth glanced at Violet Hamilton rea.s.suringly, but she sat, half-crouching, against the transom, gazing forward, white in face, with her wet hair whipping about her. Nasmyth had not noticed it before, but her hat had evidently gone over. Speech was out of the question. He wanted all his breath, and recognized that it was not advisable to divert his attention for a moment from his task, for it depends very largely upon the man at the oars whether a diminutive dinghy keeps right side uppermost in any weight of breeze. Once or twice he risked a glance at the approaching land.

Sombre forest rolled down to the water's edge, and he could see that there was already a broad ribbon of frothy whiteness beneath it, while so far as he had noticed that beach consisted of rock ledges and very large boulders. It was about the last place he would have chosen to make a landing on, in a light and fragile dinghy.

After that, he looked resolutely astern over his companion's shoulders as she swung up between him and the sea with the slate-green ridges and tumbling white tops of the combers behind her. At length a hazarded glance showed him that they were close insh.o.r.e, and he wondered for a moment whether he could swing the dinghy round without rolling the boat over. He did not think it could be done, and set his lips as he let her go, careering on a comber's crest, with at least half her length out of the water.

Then there was a white upheaval close alongside, and for a moment a black ma.s.s of stone appeared amidst the leaping foam. They swept by it, and he gasped with relief as he looked at Miss Hamilton.

"Get hold of me when she strikes," he said.

The dinghy swung round, twisting broadside-on with the brine pouring into her in spite of all that he could do; and while he tore at one oar, another white sea that curled menacingly rose up astern. It broke right into the boat, and in another moment there was a crash, and Nasmyth, who let the oars drop, stretched out his arms to the girl. He jumped when she clutched him, and found himself standing amid the swirling froth on what seemed to be a ledge of very slippery stone, with both arms about her, while the crushed-in dinghy swept up among the foam-lapped boulders. He sprang down from the stone as another sea came in, and floundered ash.o.r.e waist-deep with it, after which he set his dripping companion down upon the beach.

"I'm afraid you're rather wet," he said, when he got his breath again.

"Still, I really couldn't help it. There was a good deal more sea than I had expected."

Miss Hamilton, who sat down on a boulder with the water dripping from her skirt, looked ruefully at him and the dinghy, which was rolling over in the surf.

"How are we going to get off?" she inquired.

"Not in that dinghy, any way," answered Nasmyth. "She has knocked all one bilge in. They'll probably send the _Tillic.u.m's_ gig ash.o.r.e for us by-and-by."

"But she's going away!" said the girl, with a gasp of consternation.

Nasmyth, who turned round, saw that this was certainly the case. A cloud of steam blew away from beside the yacht's funnel, and in another moment the shriek of a whistle reached him.

"I don't think we need worry about that," he remarked. "They evidently watched us get ash.o.r.e. You see, with the breeze freshening she couldn't very well lie where she was. Still, if I remember, there's an inlet a couple of leagues or so away along the coast where she'd find shelter."

"But why didn't they send for us first?"

"The trouble is that there is really a nasty sea, and they couldn't very well take us off if they knocked a big hole in the gig. I fancy the wisest thing would be to walk towards that inlet along the beach."

They set off, when Nasmyth had pulled the dinghy out, but the beach was strewn with driftwood which was difficult to flounder over, as well as very rough. They made no greater progress when they tried the Bush. Fallen trees lay across one another, and there were th.o.r.n.y thickets in between, while, here and there, the undergrowth seemed as impenetrable as a wall. By-and-by it commenced to rain, and for an hour or two they plodded on dejectedly through the pitiless deluge. It rains exceedingly hard in that country. At last the girl sat down on a fallen tree. She had already lost her hat, and the water soaked out of Nasmyth's jacket, which he had tied by the arms about her shoulders.

Her drenched skirt clung about her, rent to tatters, and one of her little shoes was caked with mire. The other gaped open.

"How far have we gone?" she asked.

"About a league," answered Nasmyth quietly. "I think we could make the inlet in another two hours. That is, if the beach isn't very much rougher."

The girl leaned against a branch wearily. "I'm afraid I can't go a step further," she replied with trembling lips.

The rain beat upon them, and Nasmyth stood still a moment looking at her.

"Well," he said, "we really can't stay here. Since there seems no other way, I think I could carry you."

His diffidence was evident, and Violet smiled. "Have you ever carried anybody--a distance--before?" she asked.

"No," said Nasmyth, "I certainly haven't."

"Then I don't think there would be much use in trying. You couldn't carry me for more than four or five minutes. That wouldn't be worth while, would it?"

Nasmyth said nothing for a minute or two, for he felt compa.s.sionate as well as a trifle confused. He had, in fact, already discovered that there are occasions when a young woman is apt to show greater self-possession and look facts in the face more plainly than a man.