“Thompson,” he said to the officer, “if I go, will you swear to take her in and her child?”
“Certainly, Mr. Seymour.”
“Then lay to; I am going. If any of you live, tell this lady how I died,” and he pointed to Benita, “and say I thought that she would wish it.”
“She shall be told,” said the officer again, “and saved, too, if I can do it.”
“Hold Mrs. Jeffreys, then, till I am out of this. I’ll leave my coat to cover her.”
A sailor obeyed, and with difficulty Robert wrenched free his hand.
Very deliberately he pressed Benita to his breast and kissed her on the forehead, then let her gently slide on to the bottom of the boat. Next he slipped off his overcoat and slowly rolled himself over the gunwale into the sea.
“Now,” he said, “pull Mrs. Jeffreys in.”
“God bless you; you are a brave man,” said Thompson. “I shall remember you if I live a hundred years.”
But no one else said anything; perhaps they were all too much ashamed, even then.
“I have only done my duty,” Seymour answered from the water. “How far is it to the shore?”
“About three miles,” shouted Thompson. “But keep on that plank, or you will never live through the rollers. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” answered Robert.
Then the boat passed away from him and soon vanished in the misty face of the deep.
Resting on the plank which had saved the life of Mrs. Jeffreys, Robert Seymour looked about him and listened. Now and again he heard a faint, choking scream uttered by some drowning wretch, and a few hundred yards away caught sight of a black object which he thought might be a boat. If so, he reflected that it must be full. Moreover, he could not overtake it. No; his only chance was to make for the shore. He was a strong swimmer, and happily the water was almost as warm as milk. There seemed to be no reason why he should not reach it, supported as he was by a lifebelt, if the sharks would leave him alone, which they might, as there was plenty for them to feed on. The direction he knew well enough, for now in the great silence of the sea he could hear the boom of the mighty rollers breaking on the beach.
Ah, those rollers! He remembered how that very afternoon Benita and he had watched them through his field glass sprouting up against the cruel walls of rock, and wondered that when the ocean was so calm they had still such power. Now, should he live to reach them, he was doomed to match himself against that power. Well, the sooner he did so the sooner it would be over, one way or the other. This was in his favour: the tide had turned, and was flowing shorewards. Indeed, he had little to do but to rest upon his plank, which he placed crosswise beneath his breast, and steered himself with his feet. Even thus he made good progress, nearly a mile an hour perhaps. He could have gone faster had he swum, but he was saving his strength.
It was a strange journey upon that silent sea beneath those silent stars, and strange thoughts came into Robert’s soul. He wondered whether Benita would live and what she would say. Perhaps, however, she was already dead, and he would meet her presently. He wondered if he were doomed to die, and whether this sacrifice of his would be allowed to atone for his past errors. He hoped so, and put up a petition to that effect, for himself and for Benita, and for all the poor people who had gone before, hurled from their pleasure into the halls of Death.
So he floated on while the boom of the breakers grew ever nearer, companioned by his wild, fretful thoughts, till at length what he took to be a shark appeared quite close to him, and in the urgency of the moment he gave up wondering. It proved to be only a piece of wood, but later on a real shark did come, for he saw its back fin. However, this cruel creature was either gorged or timid, for when he splashed upon the water and shouted, it went away, to return no more.