And I held her tightly while I called Nobs and bade him lie
down at her back. The girl didn't struggle any more when she
learned my purpose; but she gave two or three little gasps,
and then began to cry softly, burying her face on my arm, and
thus she fell asleep.
Chapter 2
Toward morning, I must have dozed, though it seemed to me at the
time that I had lain awake for days, instead of hours. When I
finally opened my eyes, it was daylight, and the girl's hair
was in my face, and she was breathing normally. I thanked God
for that. She had turned her head during the night so that as I
opened my eyes I saw her face not an inch from mine, my lips
almost touching hers.
It was Nobs who finally awoke her. He got up, stretched, turned
around a few times and lay down again, and the girl opened her
eyes and looked into mine. Hers went very wide at first, and
then slowly comprehension came to her, and she smiled.
"You have been very good to me," she said, as I helped her to
rise, though if the truth were known I was more in need of
assistance than she; the circulation all along my left side
seeming to be paralyzed entirely. "You have been very good
to me." And that was the only mention she ever made of it; yet
I know that she was thankful and that only reserve prevented her
from referring to what, to say the least, was an embarrassing
situation, however unavoidable.
Shortly after daylight we saw smoke apparently coming straight
toward us, and after a time we made out the squat lines of a
tug--one of those fearless exponents of England's supremacy of
the sea that tows sailing ships into French and English ports.
I stood up on a thwart and waved my soggy coat above my head.
Nobs stood upon another and barked. The girl sat at my feet
straining her eyes toward the deck of the oncoming boat.
"They see us," she said at last. "There is a man answering
your signal." She was right. A lump came into my throat--for
her sake rather than for mine. She was saved, and none too soon.
She could not have lived through another night upon the Channel;
she might not have lived through the coming day.
The tug came close beside us, and a man on deck threw us a rope.
Willing hands dragged us to the deck, Nobs scrambling nimbly
aboard without assistance. The rough men were gentle as mothers
with the girl. Plying us both with questions they hustled her to
