CHAPTER XXIV
CHANCE?
‘Did you enjoy yourself—Phyllis?’
‘Rather—Denny!’
Half an hour works wonders when we are twenty-one; and, to be frank, Denny and Phyllis had wasted no time over the fireworks. Having moored their canoe beneath a friendly willow half way up the reach, they were devoting the balance of their evening to the furtherance of their mutual acquaintance, with the progress indicated above.
Denny continued:
‘Have one more cigarette, just to please me?’
‘All right!’
Denny leaned forward and held the match for Phyllis; Phyllis held the hand that held the match, to steady it. The moon was shining, too.
Suddenly the heavens were illuminated by a final fiery eruption, and a distant band began to play ‘God Save the King!’ The pair in the canoe sighed.
‘That means home for us,’ said Denny. He sat up, reluctantly. ‘I say, will you let me take you out again to-morrow, and I’ll teach you to punt?’
‘Isn’t it very difficult?’
‘You’ll learn all right, with plenty of practice. In a fortnight I’ll undertake to make quite a good performer of you; and in a month, or six weeks—’
‘But I can’t stay here for ever.’
‘You must!’
Miss Harding’s dark eyes, gazing bashfully riverward, fell upon a passing craft proceeding upstream under the propulsion of a single practised hand.
‘How well that man punts,’ she observed, à propos des bottes.
‘It’s Conway,’ said Denny. ‘He’ll have an awkward time getting home, with all that pack of launches and punts coming down—and this current. They’re a hopeless lot, too. Trippers, most of them, with no more idea of how to sit a boat than—I say, look at that!’
Two pleasure boats, packed to the gunnels with humorous young men and appreciative young women, were sweeping downstream with oars interlocked, the occupants of one vessel engaged in a playful attempt to capsize the other.
‘Perishing asses!’ growled Denny. ‘Just above the weir too! My God, look!’
A third craft—a punt containing two women and a little girl in a white frock, the latter crawling precariously about on the forward locker—had suddenly swung athwart the stream, right in the track of the oncoming and unheeding combatants. Before any one had time to realise what was happening, there was a rending crash, and the punt, struck fair amidships, heeled half over. Shrieks followed—confusion—then naked panic; for, although the punt had righted itself, it was seen that the little girl had been thrown overboard by the shock of the collision and was now drifting rapidly downstream several yards ahead of the pursuing flotilla—and gaining. Her white frock, spread upon the water and evidently buoying her up for the moment, was plainly visible in the moonlight.
‘Come on!’ shouted Denny, pushing aside the branches of the willow and getting madly to work with his paddle. ‘Let’s try to cut her off! She’ll pass here in a couple of minutes. If she gets over to the far side of Abbot’s Island, the weir—’
Phyllis pointed excitedly across the river.
‘Look, look!’ she cried. ‘He’s seen her!’
The man in the racing punt, who a moment before had been poling his way upstream with easy deliberation, had suddenly changed his course. His light craft was now racing diagonally across the current, making considerable leeway, but progressing nevertheless. Barely a hundred yards below him lay the sharp point of Abbot’s Island, buttressed with stakes and wattles, and splitting the river like a wedge. On the near side ran the comparatively placid channel leading to the lock; beyond, the current slid swiftly towards the sluice-gates above the weir.
‘He’ll have to hurry, panted Denny, or she’ll get into the eddy above the point of the island.... It’s all right: he’s going to do it!’
The flying punt was within a few yards of the glimmering bundle on the water. The man dropped his pole, and ran forward. Straightway his unwieldy craft, released from control, slewed broadside on to the current, and lost way. A cry went up from the boats.
‘He’s missed her!’ gasped Denny.... No—I say, look! Oh, well done! Did you see that? Come on, let’s get him!’
There came a roar from the pursuing flotilla, for Denny Cradock’s father, having missed his target by inches, had taken a header, without hesitation, into the swirling waters of the river. A moment later he came to the surface again, with the child in his arms.
Another roar went up, and a motor-launch shouldered its way out of the ruck and went flying in pursuit. Denny’s canoe was a good second.