CHAPTER VI

.

"Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May? When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow do you say?"

The week's visit at the Shallops' slipped quickly away, each pleasant day passing too hastily into to-morrow, Millicent thought. The ordering of each day had something of a routine, beginning invariably with a gallop on horseback. The way sometimes led across wet, hard beaches where the horses' hoofs crushed, with a crisp sound, the tiny sea-shells left by the receding waves. The tall roan which Millicent rode was a young thoroughbred, with slender legs, a proud, arching neck, and unclipped mane and tail. Mrs. Shallop had given the fine animal to her guest; and Millicent, who had a magnetic influence over all animals, easily controlled the horse by word or touch. The young people usually paired off; Millicent riding beside Graham, Barbara and Ferrara following, while Mr. Shallop brought up the rear on a sturdy cob whose character and strength were well calculated to bear up the portly magnate. Sometimes they rode through the odorous woods, where the air was heavy with spices, and melodious with sweet bird-notes foreign to Millicent's ears. The tall and stately redwoods standing straight and unbending in their close serried ranks, seemed to her a noble symbol of the life of an upright man, who looks fearlessly into the wide heavens, raised far above the briers which grow about his lesser brethren.

On their return from their ride, glowing with the splendid exercise, breakfast was served; sometimes in the pretty morning room, oftener in a sheltered part of the wide veranda, from whence they might look out upon the shadowy woods stretching behind the house. After this meal, Mr. Shallop and Ferrara took the train for San Francisco; and the hostess and Graham disappeared into the temporary studio which had been arranged for the artist. The two girls were left to amuse themselves. Millicent, who had brought her usual store of books, did not open one of them, but moused about in the library, finding many works quite new to her and full of interest. If her knowledge of Italian and French literature was remarkable, her ignorance of the English classics was stupendous. Shakspeare alone was familiar to her among the great ones. The long rows of finely bound books were mostly uncut and showed little evidence of having been read, a copy of a lady's fashion book, and a volume treating of the manners of polite society, forming notable exceptions to this rule. At mid-day a beach-wagon conveyed the young girls to the shining sea-sands, and they indulged in the luxury of a bath. In the afternoon they took long drives, or played lawn tennis with friends from the hotel in the town. The evenings were sometimes spent on the long, cool veranda, oftener on Mr. Shallop's stanch yacht, the "Golden Hind." She was a fine vessel several tons heavier than her illustrious namesake, in which Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast of California more than three centuries ago, and took possession of the land as "New Albion," in the name of good Queen Bess.

Pleasant days, full of incident and enjoyment, filled with new impressions to Millicent, and freighted with sunlight and merriment to all the party. No thought of the weather lent the anxious uncertainty to plans which so often to us in the East takes half the enjoyment from anticipation. From May to November in this favored land the blue of the sky is unclouded, save by gossamer white drifts of vapor, massed into soft shapes and mystic outlines. The sky smiles from spring to laughing summer, and the land lies steeped in sunshine through the late autumn.

The wide white beach, with its row of bathing-houses and little tents, was very attractive to Millicent. She sometimes sat in the warm sand for hours, chatting with Barbara or making friends with the bare-legged children, the tireless architects in sand. Finally, donning their bathing-suits, they ran, hand in hand, over the dry sands, across the wet space which the last wave had darkened, through the white fringe of the sea, into the cool green billows.

The last day of their visit had come, and the morrow would see them on their way back to San Rosario. Millicent and Barbara had prolonged their sea dip beyond their usual wont. Never before had the water seemed so bracing and delicious. As there were twenty or thirty bathers to keep her company, Millicent lingered among the breakers, while Barbara regained the shore. She swam leisurely about, displacing the clear water with her white arms and pretty, small feet. She suddenly became aware that a swimmer was gaining on her from behind, and her stroke instinctively quickened. Millicent swam as only the women of Venice can swim; and the race between her and her unseen pursuer bade fair to be hotly contested. With head high lifted from the waves which circled caressingly about the smooth round throat, knotting the tendril curls at the nape of the neck, the girl kept steadily on her course without turning her head to see who might be so audacious as to follow her. Strong as were her strokes, she slowly lost ground; and finally the water about her rippled with the strokes of the man who was gaining. Soon he had caught up with her, and side by side they swam for a space. Then the victor spoke in a voice well known to her, and the girl answered him with a laugh which rang out fresh and crisp as the sound of the wavelets. Then she turned her head and looked full at him as he moved by her side, strong and graceful as a young merman.

"So, my nymph, you are at home in Father Neptune's arms as well as in the embrace of the great tree. Which is your native element, earth, air, or water?"

"I am amphibious."

"And which of your three elemental homes do you like the best?"

"When I am dancing, the air; when I am walking, dear Mother Earth; and when I swim, the sea."

"When I paint you, it will be as I see you now, triumphing over the waves as our great mother, Aphrodite, triumphed over them before you."

"That compliment would go to my head were it not mixed with so much water."

Then they both laughed, because the sky was sapphire clear, and the sea beryl green; because the golden sun warmed them with its kind rays; because each was fair and good to look upon; because, when they were together, winds blew more softly, and sky and sea took on a more tender hue where they melted at the horizon into one ineffable kiss. A pair of white-winged gulls swept above them, shrieking their love-notes hoarsely, while the white-armed girl and the strong-limbed man breasted the waves together, side by side. Though lapped by the cool water, Graham felt the warm influence which folded about him like a cloak in Millicent's presence. When she grew tired the girl turned upon her side and floated; while Graham swam about her in little circles, first moving like a shark on one side, with long, far-reaching strokes, then swimming upon his back, and finally beneath the waves, looking always at her face seen dimly through the dark-green water.

After a space Millicent looked about to find herself alone, far from the shore with its group of bathers. At first she fancied that her companion must be swimming below the water as he had done before; but, as the slow-passing seconds went by, she realized that some ill must have befallen him. Stretching her arms above her head, she dived straight and swift through the clear water towards the pebbled bottom of the ocean shining through the pellucid waters. In that dim under-current she touched him, stiff and cold, rising toward the surface, but through no effort of his own helpless limbs. In that terrified heart-beat of time she saw his face set and white, with horror-stricken eyes widely strained apart. Into them she looked, her own firing with hope and courage, and giving a mute promise of rescue. She seized his rigid arm with her strong, small hands, and they rose together to the surface. The man was as if paralyzed; and the girl for an instant tried to support him, but, feeling such a strain would soon out-wear her half-spent strength, she cried,--

"Put your hand on my shoulder--so, and I will swim below you." Her voice was hoarse and shrill as that of the screaming sea-gulls. He could not speak, but looked toward the shore as if he would have her save herself and abandon him to his fate.

"No, no!" she cried, "I _will_ save you;" and, placing his hands on her shoulders, struck out bravely toward the shore. To reach it seemed at first an easy thing, but the struggle proved a terrible one, cruelly unequal, between the girl's small strength, with the burden now added to her own weight, and the waves grown hungry for human prey. Their babbling music now was changed to Millicent's ears, and they clamored greedily for her life, for that other life which she was striving to snatch from their cruel embrace. Again and again the man would loosen his hold. She could not save him: why should she die too, she was so young, so fair! This he tried to tell her in gasping accents, but she only gripped his hand more firmly and placed it as before. They should both live or die. Fate, which had been so cruel to her, had cast their lots together for that day at least; and death seemed sweeter by his side than life without him. Her brave spirit fainted not, though her labored strokes grew slower and feebler. Then she gave one great cry for help to those who were so near them, and yet so unconscious of their danger. She heard their voices plainly,--the mothers talking to romping children, whose ringing laughter mocked her agony. Was it their death knell, this sound of sweet child-voices that drowned her frenzied cry, and filled the ears of the strong men and women, keeping out the fainting accents which pleaded for his life and her own? Once again, and this time with a thrilling vibration of despair, the woman's voice rang out across the waves. It was freighted with her last hope; it was the latest sound her gasping lungs could utter. Could love and hope of life outshriek the murmur of the waves, the shrill note of the sea-mews, the noisy prattle of the infants? The man, long since despairing, groaned: it seemed murder to him that his helpless weight should drag down the fair, brave young creature to her grave; his death agony was made more bitter by the thought. The girl's determination never wavered, and her little strength was not wasted in a longer struggle; she managed to keep his face above the waves, but now only held her own, and had ceased to make the slightest progress. She could now no longer see the bathers. Had her cry been heard? O waves! be merciful and still your clamor! White-winged partners, cry no more your mocking love notes! Sweet mothers, list no longer to your children's laughter, for there is other sound which must reach your fond ears and chill your warm hearts with horror! For a moment there grew a great silence as of listening, and then over the water came answering cries of women agonized with sympathy, came the hearty voices of strong men saying, "Keep up, keep up! for help is coming, it is close beside you." Ah, God! it is in time, for the two white faces, lying so close in the green waters, have but just vanished from sight; they still shine through the waves but a little space beneath the surface. Strong helping arms raise the nerveless bodies from the waves that murmur sullenly, bear them safely to the shore with its shining white sands, and, last, gently loose the maiden's white hands, clinging still, though all unconsciously, to the man whose life she has saved. Weeping women gather about them, lying there so still and fair upon the white beach; frightened children look curiously at the half-drowned figures of the man and the woman. Still are they man and woman, and not yet fallen to that terrible neuter of death, wherein age and sex are not, where serf and queen are equals.

##