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.