Sisters | Page 8

and
then--the fastenings gave way, and she slipped through! The empty
garment swam up to him on the edge of a new wave, which clapped it
over his face like a gigantic plaster.
Oh, this was dreadful! She would be rescued eventually, of course--
amongst them they would not let her drown, not if skill and courage
had any show at all--but the fact that she was in danger could no longer
be ignored. She was a little delicate thing, already overcome, and
precious time was wasting, when every second was of the most
stupendous consequence. With a frenzied gesture, Guthrie shook off the
cloak, spluttered, spat, and made a dive to intercept her as she went
down, wondering as he did so whether breath and strength would hold
out if he missed her and had to follow her to the bottom. The swing of
the swell was awful, and the darkness of the blind night too cruel for
words.
"If only I had this cursed coat off!" he dumbly sobbed. "If only I could
get rid of these damned laced boots!" Bad words would have been
forgivable even had he not been a sailor.
He missed her, groped desperately, to the verge of suffocation, and
came up to cough, and groan, and pump breath enough to take him
down again. It would have cost five minutes to get his clothes off, and
there was not a single second to spare--now.
"See her?" he shrieked.
"Ne'er a sign," Bill Hardacre shouted. "But we'll catch her when she
rises. Take a turn o' the line round you, sir, so's we can haul you in--"
But there was not even time for that in the frightful race of these vital
moments. She was gone, and she must be found, and there was but her
husband to look for her. The two other men were few enough for the
safety of the launch as she was then situated; and besides, Hardacre
could be more useful to Lily above water than below. The neighbouring

ships lay undisturbed, putting off no boats to help. In all that band of
lights ringing the black welter of the bay, like stars out of the Infinite,
shining calmly upon an abandoned world, not one was moving.
Guthrie Carey gave a last look round, identified the window of what
was to have been his home, where the fire was burning brightly, the
little supper spread, good Mrs Hardacre watching for them at the
door--heard the landlady's cousin wailing, "Lil! Lil!"--and again
plunged under, arms wide and eyes staring, and heart bursting with
despair. Everything in him seemed bursting--an agonising sensation--as
his overstrained lungs collapsed, and the power of his strong limbs
failed him; then everything seemed to break away and let in the floods
of Lethe with a rush--confusion and forgetfulness and a whirl of dreams,
settling to a strange peace, an irresistible sleep, as if he had swallowed
a magic opiate. The sea took him, as a nurse takes a helpless child, and
floated him up from the place where he had been savagely groping;
something met him half-way, floating down upon him, and his arms
went round it of their own accord. But they were powerless to clasp or
hold it. It passed him, sinking gently, and lay where it sank, under all
the turmoil, as still as the rocking tide would let it.
The launch sounded her steam whistle furiously. From both sides of the
bay it was heard, screeching through the windy night like a fiend
possessed, and men got up hastily to ask what was the matter. Another
launch put out from Williamstown, and a police boat from Sandridge,
and the anchored ships awoke and hailed them. Soon half-a-dozen
boats were tossing about the spot; they tossed for two hours, and Bill
Hardacre dived seven times with a rope round his waist, while the
widowed young husband lay on the cabin floor between two doctors,
the baby and the landlady's cousin keening over him.
"Well," said Dugald Finlayson, as at last they headed for Williamstown
through the now lessening storm, with a bundle in tarpaulin beside
them, "it do seem as if the Powers above take a pleasure in tripping us
up when we least expect it."
"Aye," said Bill Hardacre, sitting crying in his wet clothes, "he said as
we were starting he'd got all he wanted now. I thinks to myself at the

time, thinks I, 'That's an unlucky thing to say.'" But who is to judge
luck in this world? Poor little Lily Harrison was a helpless creature, and
had almost 'nothing in her' except vanity.
CHAPTER II.

Sincerely he believed, when he was on his feet again, that his life was
wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with