Part 43 (1/2)

John rose and started to his own room. ”I'll have you up in time for your train,” he said. ”Get a good sleep. You will need it before starting on a long journey like yours. Good night.”

”Good night, my boy, good night,” Cavanaugh said.

From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of prayers.

”Poor, dear old Sam!” he muttered, and began to undress for bed.

CHAPTER V

After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to have become actually human in his fidelity and affection.

One day, having to inspect a finished building on Was.h.i.+ngton Heights, not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the sh.o.r.e. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fis.h.i.+ng and bathing in the clear water.

Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself ate.

Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either side of him in the distance jutted out from the sh.o.r.e he was on long, slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anch.o.r.ed floats. On his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splas.h.i.+ng about, trying to learn to swim.

”Binks, old chap,” John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, ”there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim.”

The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and looked toward the bathers. The children now ash.o.r.e were screaming, women were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two men were wading out into the water which from the pa.s.sage of a great steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not swim John saw at once, and he ran down the sh.o.r.e toward them.

”For G.o.d's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!” a man screamed.

”Me no swim! Dere, dere!” and he pointed to a pair of water-wings floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks.

John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the water-wings, was several yards ahead of him.

”Dere, dere! My G.o.d! she's up de third time!” shrieked the girl's father. ”Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time--de last time!”

On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the girl or the dog.

A wail of despair rang out from the sh.o.r.e; men, women, and children ran to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew.

The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the sh.o.r.e were louder than ever.

”Again! again! meester!” the father yelled, ”farther up. O G.o.d! O G.o.d!”

Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.

”She's been under fifteen minutes,” the boatman said. ”There is little chance now, even if we get her up. My G.o.d! what fools those greasers are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!”

John had time to observe the group on the sh.o.r.e now. The mother of the girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood crying l.u.s.tily.

”We can't do anything now,” the boatman said when another five minutes had pa.s.sed. ”She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely.”

Ten minutes more. Even the group on the sh.o.r.e seemed to have given up hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but the object yielded gently. ”Hold! Not so hard!” John ordered. ”You might pull it loose. I've caught something!”