Chapter 16. The Ebb Tide

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_ CHAPTER XVI. THE EBB TIDE

"John Brown," his long night's vigil over, extinguished the lights in the two towers, descended the iron stairs, and walked across the yard into the kitchen. His first move, after entering the house, was to ring the telephone bell and endeavor to call Eastboro. He was anxious concerning Atkins. Seth had not returned, and the substitute assistant was certain that some accident must have befallen him. The storm had been severe, but it would take more than weather to keep the lightkeeper from his post; if he was all right he would have managed to return somehow.

Brown rang the bell time and time again, but got no response. The storm had wrecked the wires, that was certain, and that means of communication was cut off. He kindled the fire in the range and tried to forget his anxiety by preparing breakfast. When it was prepared he waited a while and then sat down to a lonely meal. But he had no appetite, and, after dallying with the food on his plate, gave it up and went outside to look about him.

The first thing he looked at was the road from the village. No sign of life in that direction as far as he could see. Then he looked at the bungalow. Early as it was, a thread of blue smoke was ascending from the chimney. Did that mean that the housekeeper had returned? Or had Ruth Graham been alone all through the miserable night? Under ordinary circumstances he would have gone over and asked if all was well. He would have done that, even if Seth were at home--he was past the point where the lightkeeper or their compact could have prevented him--but he could not muster courage to go now. She must have found the note he had tucked under the door, and he was afraid to hear her answer. If it should be no, then--well, then he did not care what became of him.

He watched the bungalow for a time, hoping that she might come out--that he might at least see her--but the door did not open. Auguring all sorts of dismal things from this, he moped gloomily back to the kitchen. He was tired and had not slept for thirty hours, but he felt no desire for bed. He could not go to bed anyway until Atkins returned--and he did not want to.

He sat down in a chair and idly picked up one of a pile of newspapers lying in the corner. They were the New York and Boston papers which the grocery boy had brought over from Eastboro, with the mail, the previous day. Seth had not even looked at them, and Brown, who seldom or never read newspapers, found that he could not do so now. He tossed them on the table and once more went out of doors. After another glance at the bungalow, he walked to the edge of the bluff and looked over.

He was astonished to see how far the tide had risen in the night. The line of seaweed and drift marking its highest point was well up the bank. Now the ebb was foaming past the end of the wharf. He looked for the lobster car, which should have been floating at its moorings, but could not see it. Either it was under the wharf or it had been swept away and was gone. And one of the dories was gone, too. No, there it was, across the cove, high and dry on the beach. If so much damage was visible from where he stood, it was probable that a closer examination might show even more. He reentered the kitchen, took the boathouse key from its nail--the key to Seth's wonderful purchase, the spring lock which was to keep out thieves and had so far been of no use except as a trouble-maker--and started for the wharf. As he passed the table he picked up the bundle of newspapers and took them with him. The boathouse was the repository for rubbish, old papers and magazines included, and these might as well be added to the heap. Atkins had not read this particular lot, but the substitute assistant did not think of this.

The lobster car was not under the wharf. The ropes which had moored it were broken, and the car was gone. Splinters and dents in the piles showed where it had banged and thumped in the grasp of the tide before breaking loose. And, lying flat on the wharf and peering under it, it seemed to him that the piles themselves were a trifle aslant; that the whole wharf had settled down on the outer side.

He rose and was about to go further out for another examination, when his foot struck the pile of papers he had brought with him. He picked them up, and, unlocking the boathouse door--it stuck and required considerable effort to open it--entered the building, tossed the papers on the floor, and turned to go out. Before he could do so the door swung shut with a bang and a click.

At first he did not realize what the click meant. Not until he tried to open it did he understand. The settling of the wharf had thrown the door and its frame out of the perpendicular. That was why it stuck and opened with such reluctance. When he opened it, he had, so to speak, pushed it uphill. Its own weight had swung it back, and the spring lock--in which he had left the key--had worked exactly as the circular of directions declared it would do. He was a prisoner in that boathouse.

Even then he did not fully grasp the situation. He uttered an exclamation of impatience and tugged at the door; but it was heavy, jammed tight in its frame, and the lock was new and strong. He might as well have tried to pull up the wharf.

After a minute of fruitless effort he gave up the attempt on the door and moved about the little building, seeking other avenues of escape. The only window was a narrow affair, high up at the back, hung on hinges and fastened with a hook and staple. He climbed up on the fish nets and empty boxes, got the window open, and thrust his head and one shoulder through the opening. That, however, was as far as he could go. A dwarf might have squeezed through that window, but not an ex-varsity athlete like Russell Brooks or a husky longshoreman like "John Brown." It was at the back, facing the mouth of the creek and the sea, and afforded a beautiful marine view, but that was all. He dropped back on the fish nets and audibly expressed his opinion of the lock and the man who had bought it.

Then he tried the door again, again gave it up, and sat down on the fish nets to think. Thinking was unsatisfactory and provoking. He gave that up, also, and, seeing a knothole in one of the boards in the landward side of his jail, knelt and applied his eye to the aperture. His only hope of freedom, apparently, lay in the arrival home of the lightkeeper. If Seth had arrived he could shout through that knothole and possibly be heard.

The knothole, however, commanded a view, not of the lighthouse buildings, but of the cove and the bungalow. The bungalow! Ruth Graham! Suddenly, and with a shock, flashed to his mind the thought that his imprisonment, if at all prolonged, was likely to be, not a joke, but the most serious catastrophe of his life.

For Ruth Graham was going to leave the bungalow and Eastboro that very day. He had begged to see her once more, and this day was his last chance. He had written her, pleading to see her and receive his answer. If he did not see her, if Seth did not return before long and he remained where he was, a prisoner and invisible, the last chance was gone. Ruth would believe he had repented of his declaration as embodied in the fateful note, and had fled from her. She had intimated that he was a coward in not seeing his fiancee and telling her the truth. She did not like his writing that other girl and running away. Now she would believe the cowardice was inherent, because he had written her, also--and had run away. Horrible!

Through the knothole he sent a yell for rescue. Another and another. They were unheard--at least, no one emerged from the bungalow. He sprang to his feet and made another circle of the interior of the boathouse. Then he sank down upon the heap of nets and again tried to think. He must get out. He must--somehow!

The morning sunshine streamed through the little window and fell directly upon the pile of newspapers he had brought from the kitchen and thrown on the floor. His glance chanced to rest for an instant upon the topmost paper of the pile. It was a New York journal which devotes two of its inside pages to happenings in society. When he threw it down it had unfolded so that one of these pages lay uppermost. Absently, scarcely realizing that he was doing so, the substitute assistant read as follows:

"Engagement in High Life Announced. Another American Girl to Wed a Nobleman. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson to become the Baroness Hardacre."

With a shout he fell upon his knees, seized the paper and read on:

"Another contemplated matrimonial alliance between one of New York's fairest daughters and a scion of the English nobility was made public yesterday. Miss Ann Gardner Davidson, of this city, the breaking of whose engagement to Russell Agnew Brooks, son of George Agnew Brooks, the wealthy cotton broker, was the sensation of the early spring, is to marry Herbert Ainsworth-Ainsworth, Baron Hardacre, of Hardacre Towers, Surrey on Kent, England. It was said that the young lady broke off her former engagement with Young Brooks because of--"

The prisoner in the boathouse read no further. Ruth Graham had said to him the day before that, in her opinion, he had treated Ann Davidson unfairly. He should have gone to her and told her of his quarrel with his father. Although he did not care for Ann, she might care for him. Might care enough to wait and . . . Wait? Why, she cared so little that, within a few months, she was ready to marry another man. And, if he owed her any debt of honor, no matter how farfetched and fantastic, it was canceled now. He was absolutely free. And he had been right all the time. He could prove it. He would show Ruth Graham that paper and . . .

His jaw set tight, and he rose from the heap of fish nets with the folded paper clinched like a club in his hand. He was going to get out of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards with his head.

Once more he climbed to the window and made an attempt to squeeze through. It was futile, of course, but this time it seemed to him that the sill and the plank to which it was attached gave a little. He put the paper between his teeth, seized the sill with both hands, braced his feet against a beam below, and jerked with all his strength. Once--twice--three times! It was giving! It was pulling loose! He landed on his back upon the nets, sill and a foot of boarding in his hands. In exactly five seconds, the folded newspaper jammed in his trousers pocket, he swung through the opening and dropped to the narrow space between the building and the end of the wharf.

The space was a bare six inches wide. As he struck, his ankle turned under him, he staggered, tried wildly to regain his balance, and fell. As he fell he caught a glimpse of a blue-clad figure at the top of the bluff before the bungalow. Then he went under with a splash, and the eager tide had him in its grasp.

When he came to the surface and shook the water from his eyes, he was already some distance from the wharf. This, an indication of the force of the tide, should have caused him to realize his danger instantly. But it did not. His mind was intent upon the accomplishment of one thing, namely, the proving to Ruth Graham, by means of the item in the paper, that he was no longer under any possible obligation to the Davidson girl. Therefore, his sole feeling, as he came sputtering to the top of the water, was disgust at his own clumsiness. It was when he tried to turn and swim back to the wharf that he grasped the situation as it was. He could not swim against that tide.

There was no time to consider what was best to do. The breakers were only five hundred yards off, and if he wished to live he must keep out of their clutches. He began to swim diagonally across the current, putting all his strength into each stroke. But for every foot of progress toward the calmer water he was borne a yard toward the breakers.

The tide bubbled and gurgled about him. Miniature whirlpools tugged at his legs, pulling him under. He fought nobly, setting his teeth and swearing inwardly that he would make it, he would not give up, he would not drown. But the edge of the tide rip was a long way off, and he was growing tired already. Another whirlpool sucked him down, and when he rose he shouted for help. It was an instinctive, unreasoning appeal, almost sure to be useless, for who could hear him?--but he shouted, nevertheless.

And the shout was answered. From somewhere behind him--a long, long distance, so it seemed to him--came the clear call in a woman's voice.

"All right! I'm coming. Keep on, just as you are."

He kept on, or tried to. He swam--and swam--and swam. He went under, rose, went under again, fought his way up, and kept on swimming. Through the gurgle and hiss of the water, sounding dully above the humming in his ears and the roar of the blood in his tired brain, came the clear voice again:

"Steady now! Just as you are! one more stroke! Now one more! Quick! Quick! Now! Can you get aboard?"

The wet, red side of a dory's bow pushed past his laboring shoulder. A hand clutched his shirt collar. He reached up and grasped the boat's gunwale, hung on with all his weight, threw one leg over the edge, and tumbled into the dory's bottom.

"Thanks," he panted, his eyes shut. "That--was--about the closest call I--ever had. Hey? Why! RUTH!"

She was panting, also, but she was not looking at him. She was rowing with all her might, and gazing fearfully over her shoulder. "Are you strong enough to help me row?" she asked breathlessly. "We must head her away from here, out of this tide. And I'm afraid that I can't do it alone."

He raised his head and looked over the rail. The breakers were alarmingly close. He scrambled to the thwart, pushed her aside and seized the oars. She resisted.

"Only one," she gasped. "I can manage the other."

So, each with an oar, they fought the tide, and won--but by the narrowest of margins. The dory edged into stiller and shoaler water, crept out of the eddying channel over the flat where the depth was but a scant four feet, turned almost by inches, and, at last, slid up on the sandy beach below the bungalow. The girl sat bowed over the handle of her oar, her breast heaving. She said nothing. Her companion likewise said nothing. Staggering, he stepped over the side, walked a few feet up the beach, and then tumbled in an unconscious heap on the sand.

He was not unconscious long, being a healthy and robust young fellow. His first thought, upon opening his eyes, was that he must close them again as quickly as possible because he wanted the dream to continue. To lie with one's head in the lap of an angel, while that angel strokes your forehead and cries over you and begs you for her sake not to die, is too precious a delusion to lose. But the opening of one's eyes is a mistake under such circumstances, and he had made it. The angel's next remark was entirely unromantic and practical.

"Are you better?" she asked. "You're all right now, aren't you?"

Her patient's reply was also a question, and irrelevant.

"DO you care?" he asked faintly.

"Are you better?" she asked in return.

"Did you get my note? The note I put under the door?"

"Answer me. Are you all right again?"

"You answer ME. Did you get my note?"

"Yes. . . . Don't try to get up. You're not strong enough yet. You must wait here while I go and get you some--"

"Don't go!" He almost shouted it. "If--if you do I'll--I'll--I think I'm going to faint again."

"Oh, no, you're not. And I must go and get you some brandy or something. Stay just where you are."

"Ruth Graham, if you go away now, I'll go with you, if I have to crawl. Maybe I can't walk, but I swear I'll crawl after you on my hands and knees unless you answer my question. DO you care enough for me to wait?"

She looked out at the little bay, at the narrow, wicked tide race, at the breakers beyond. Then she looked down again at him.

"Yes," she said. . . . "OH, are you going to faint again? Don't! Please don't!"

Russell Agnew Brooks, the late "John Brown," opened his eyes. "I am not going to faint," he observed. "I was merely trying to realize that I was fully conscious."

Some time after this--hours and minutes do not count in paradise--he remembered the item in the paper.

"By George!" he exclaimed, "I had something to show you. I'm afraid I've lost it. Oh, no I here it is."

He extracted from his trousers pocket the water soaked lump that had been the New York newspaper. The page containing the sensational announcement of the engagement in high life was quite undecipherable. Being on the outside of the folded paper, it had rubbed to a pulpy blur. However, he told her about it, and she agreed that his judgment of the character of the future Baroness Hardacre had been absolutely correct.

"You were very wise," she said sagely.

"Not so wise as I've become since," he asserted with decision. Then he added, with a rather rueful smile, "I'm afraid, dear, people won't say as much for you, when they know."

"I'm satisfied."

"You may have to wait all those years--and years--you spoke of."

"I will."

But she did not have to. For, at that moment, the miracle of wisdom beside her sat up and pointed to the wet newspaper lying on the sand at her feet.

"Has my happiness affected my wits?" he demanded. "Or does salt water bring on delusions? Aren't those my initials?"

He was pointing to a paragraph in the "Personals" column of the New York paper. This, being on one of the inner pages, had remained comparatively dry and could be read. The particular "Personal" to which he pointed was this:

"R. A. B." Wherever you are. This is to certify that I hereby acknowledge that you have been absolutely correct in the A. D. matter; witness news elsewhere. I was a fool, and I apologize publicly. Incidentally I need a head like yours in my business. Come back. Partnership awaiting you. Come back; and marry anybody or nobody as you see fit.

"FATHER." _

Read next: Chapter 17. Woman-Haters

Read previous: Chapter 15. The Voyage Of The Daisy M

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