erce delight, while the splash of
the water as it rippled past the sides of the boat seemed to me the
bravest and sweetest music I had ever heard.

I think Joyce and Tommy realized something of what I was feeling, for
neither of them made any real attempt at conversation. Now and then
the latter would jump up to haul in or let out the main sheet a
little, and once or twice he pointed out some slight alteration which
had been recently made in the buoying of the river. Joyce sat quite
still for the most part, either smiling happily at me, or else
watching the occasional ships and barges that we passed, most of which
were just beginning to get under way.

We had rounded Canvey Island and left Hole Haven some little distance
behind us, when Tommy, who was leaning over the side staring out
ahead, suddenly turned back to me.

"There's someone coming round the point in a deuce of a hurry," he
remarked. "Steam launch from the look of it. Better give 'em a wide
berth, or we'll have their wash aboard."

I bent down and took a quick glance under the spinnaker boom. A couple
of hundred yards ahead a long, white, vicious-looking craft was racing
swiftly towards us, throwing up a wave on either side of her bows that
spread out fanwise across the river.

I shoved down the helm, and swung the _Betty_ a little off her course
so as to give them plenty of room to go by. They came on without
slackening speed in the least, and passed us at a pace which I
estimated roughly to be about sixteen knots an hour. I caught a
momentary glimpse of a square-shouldered man with a close-trimmed
auburn beard crouching in the stern, and then the next moment a wave
broke right against our bows, drenching all three of us in a cloud of
flying spray.

Tommy swore vigorously. "That's the kind of river-hog who ought to be
choked," he said. "If I--"

He was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Joyce. She had jumped
up laughing when the spray swept over her, and now, holding on to the
rigging, she was pointing excitedly to something just ahead of us.

"Quick, Tommy!" she said. "There's a man in the water--drowning.
They've swamped his boat."

In a flash Tommy had leaped to the side. "Keep her going," he shouted
to me. "We're heading straight for him." Then scrambing aft he grabbed
hold of the tow rope and swiftly hauled the dinghy alongside.

"I'll pick him up, Tommy," I said quietly. "You look after the boat:
you know her better than I do."

H