ng out of repair.
There was, accordingly, nothing to do but stand in huddled groups
wringing the hands that, perforce, were helpless. Some--the timid
ones--covered their eyes from the sight. Others, fascinated, found it
impossible to turn their gaze for a single second from the hapless boat
which their practised sight noted was now perceptibly lower in the
water. One or two among them, old Goody Dempster conspicuously, stood
with white lips that moved silently as they prayed God to have pity, to
stretch out His mighty hand and save those in dire danger.

And while the women watched breathlessly, or prayed, Geoff, with old
Binks, struggled on, a nightmare feeling weighing them down all the
time, that they were standing still, instead of making way.

At last, when the watchers on the shore could no longer see aught but
the rim of the top of the boat, and only the two clinging figures in
it, for 'The Theodora' had settled down almost under water, the
Vicarage boat pulled up alongside, with a final long sweep, into which
Geoff, half fainting, put his sole remaining strength.

How the rescue was achieved, then, none of the four could ever
afterwards tell or picture with any clearness. It was as if other
hands than those of Geoff and Binks did the work, while Queenie and
then Theo were half lifted, half dragged in by the two.

More dead than alive, the rescued sisters were, with considerable
difficulty, laid at the bottom of the boat. Theo had swooned away the
moment she realised that they were saved, and the women watchers on the
shore sobbed loudly in hysterical relief.

'Shall we take 'em over to the Vicarage?' hoarsely asked Binks,
handling his oar for the return.

'No, no! Home--home to father!' whispered back Geoff, whose voice
seemed to have died away into a feeble sort of whistle.

Then the two, exhausted as they were already, pulled their hardest over
the blue waters to the tiny pier under the Bunk.

The catastrophe, next door to a terrible tragedy, had happened in the
space of about fifteen minutes, and it seemed strangely impossible that
the sun should be still shining, and the light wind curling the
rippling waves as if nothing had happened.

The captain, who had been, as usual, absorbed in his manuscript,
sitting with his back to the window, knew nothing of it until he was
hastily called to carry up the senseless Theo. It was a considerable
time before his efforts to restore the unconscious girl