it was a spell of long-drawn-out anguish for the watchers on shore, the while that theo carnegy and little queenie sank helplessly in their rapidly filling boat. from one to another of the cottages round the bay the news had flown like wild-fire that the captain's boat, with the captain's daughters, was going down within sight, and not a man nor a boy in northbourne village but was out at sea since daybreak, for the 'mackerrow' were proving a little gold-mine to the community, and the fishermen grudged to sleep or eat, so eager were they to make hay while the sun was shining.

the women would not have thought twice of taking to the boats themselves and attempting a rescue, but all the decent crafts were at sea; the few that were beached were useless, being 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 were successful; and it would not be easy to tell how the father, whom theo carnegy had allowed herself to think and pronounce indifferent to his children's welfare, suffered as he hung over the senseless form of his best-beloved child. her peril stirred up all the love that, though undoubtedly existing, had been dormant. from that fateful hour, however, the old sea-captain was an altered man. his heart awoke to the fact that the chief place in it should be filled by his motherless children, instead of, as it had been, by a mere hobby.

all through the hours of the anxious night that followed he went from one bed to the other, tending the occupants with that gentleness, almost womanly, which a sailor possesses in no ordinary degree. for queenie there were no apprehensions, save dread of a chill from the wetting she received; the child was tranquil, and appeared to have sustained no shock.

'we said "our father," me and theo,' she whispered innocently to the captain, as he sat by her little bed holding her hands, 'and he sent geoff and binks directly to pick us out of the water; and then theo went off to sleep in the boat, and my new shoes is spoilt most dreadful!'

with theo it was otherwise. she had sustained a severe mental shock, as well as the bodily strain, in her fruitless efforts to pull the heavy boat through the water. and it had been a terrible spasm of terror to sink slowly, helplessly, in the yawning waves, trying all the time to hold up the precious little sister. when the doctor from brattlesby arrived, he looked grave enough over his elder patient; and next day he was even more serious.

'she is in for brain fever!' he said briefly. he was a man of few words, leaving the burden of conversation, as a rule, to his patients. hence, perhaps, it was that little dr. cobbe was the most popular being, man or doctor, for miles round northbourne.

and with regard to theo it was as he said. for many weeks theo carnegy lay battling for her life in the cruel clutches of the fever, unconscious that her most devoted and tenderest nurse was the father whom she had bitterly imagined thought more of his hobby than of his boys and girls. all northbourne, as with one heart, sorrowed aloud for their favourite miss theedory; her grave condition was the sole theme of talk in the cottages round the bay.

'happen she was too good to live!' croaked jerry blunt's mother, with an appropriate melancholy in her voice; and the gossips nodded approvingly at a sentiment which fitted in with their own views of life.

'nothin' o' the sort!' struck in a dissentient voice, which belonged to goody dempster herself. 'there's none too good to live, seein' as life is a great gift that can only come from the lord himself. he gives, and he takes away, that's how we've got to look at things. and, please god, he will see fit to raise up miss theedory among us again, hale and sound. she's one as could be ill spared.'

'amen!' assented more than one voice among the listeners, in ready response.

but there was one heart that felt heavier than all others—too heavy to hold a ray of hope—and that belonged to alick carnegy. when he returned home from his stolen holiday, and found what had happened during his absence, the remorse of the boy was uncontrollable. he could not but feel it to be true, what others did not scruple to tell him bluntly, for plain-speaking was a distinguishing feature of the fishing village, that had he and ned dempster been at home, they could have reached his sisters in far less time than geoff, younger and weaker of muscle, and binks, long past his heyday of strength and stiffened with rheumatism, had done.

with cold shivers of dread, he heard how theo, though delivered from one perilous strait, lay in jeopardy of her life in the new peril of fever.

she would die, he was convinced, and voices seemed to be incessantly crying in his ears: 'it will be your fault, all your fault! you fought to have your own way, in spite of her pleadings, and now she will die because you were not here to help her in such sore peril. she was deserted, so she will die, our theo!'

alick, a boy of strong feelings, became maddened by despair, and exaggerated the calamity. as time went on—and brain fever rarely hurries itself—theo grew no better, but rather weaker, and alick secretly called himself her murderer. he was distraught.

'oh, ned, if we had been at home, you and i, we could have reached them in half the time geoff and old binks took! we could have rescued them before "the theodora" began to settle down!' he blurted out when he found ned sobbing helplessly in a corner of the tea-house, the latter, though not possessed of alick's torturing powers of imagination, was overcome with remorse for his own share in the transaction.

oh, muster alick, it ain't "we" it's me, only me, as is to blame!' he hoarsely said, in a voice choked with sobs.

'what do you mean?' asked alick heavily; and he stared down at the crouching speaker.

'miss theedory telled i to mend the leak,' moaned ned. 'and she thought i'd done it, i expec', for she showed how 'twas to be mended; but i knowed how as well as she did, for i've seed a-many done. but i put off the doin' of it to go to brattlesby woods along with you, muster alick, and jerry blunt, an' i deceived her; an' now she's drowned, miss theedory is! leastways, 'tis the same thing; for all northbourne's a-sayin' as she's bound to die of it all!' the boy, burying his head, broke down into a loud, irrepressible fit of crying.

ned too! alick's lips quivered as he turned abruptly away. he himself it was who tempted ned away, and caused the boy to neglect his duty, bringing down all this misfortune. he had been thinking himself the only person in fault for being wilfully absent, but it was worse and worse! he had lured away, and placed another in the same position, so wide-spreading can a single evil step be in its results. even through his sinking fears about theo, alick could not but feel pathetically sorry for poor ned, whose grief grew wilder in its abandon after his confession was out.

'have you told any one about not mending the leak, ned? does my father know?' he came back to ned's side to ask anxiously.

'i dussn't!' was the choking reply. 'but i feels bound, somehow, to tell you,' he added. 'if miss theedory dies, 'twill be me as did it; an' you can tell 'em all so, if you like! they'll put me in gaol, o' course; p'raps they'll hang me. they may bring it in manslaughter. i dunno what they haven't the power to do!' ended ned desperately.

alick stared through the window out to sea, with an equally woebegone face with that of his companion in misery. two more unhappy boys one could not have well beheld. and this grievous state of affairs had revengefully trodden on the heels of the delightfully fascinating expedition to the woods, which had been forbidden to the one boy, and which the other boy had shirked his duty to join in!

'what would be the end of it all?' alick dully asked himself.

'ned,' he said aloud, and there was a passionate ring of regret in his voice, 'it wasn't worth it!'

'no, muster, it warn't!' assented ned, fully understanding that alick would have given his right hand to have put back the clock of time, that he might again have the chance of apologising as geoff had done, and returning to his duty in the schoolroom. both boys felt positively assured that had they been on the spot the catastrophe could not possibly have occurred.

there was a spell of silence in the tea-house. now and again the echo of a sob shook ned from head to foot. alick leaned his forehead against the window jamb, and stared sullenly at the leaping waves below. as he gazed, a strange resolve came into the boy's mind, born of the deepening despair consuming him.

in the black gloom that environed him, came satan's opportunity.

'you will never be forgiven if theo dies,' whispered the tempting voice. 'perhaps you also will be put in prison, who knows, with ned as an accomplice!' alick carnegy, it will be seen, had but confused notions as to what manslaughter meant. he shivered and cowered at the terrifying notions of being shut up for life, perhaps, in some gloomy gaol. better-informed boys may jeer at alick's ignorance of things in general, but northbourne was an out-of-the-way, stand-still spot, with few or no opportunities of smartening the wits, of keeping up with the times.

'the best way out of the difficulty would be to run away, wouldn't it?' as he brooded, somebody seemed to suddenly and swiftly whisper in his ear. and alick, when the sense of the suggestion penetrated his mind, abruptly lifted his hanging head. he gasped aloud in relief. a door of escape opened in the black, impenetrable wall that was closing in round him.

'ned,' he said softly, nudging the other boy, 'listen to me! be done with that cry-baby business! we two, you and i, have got ourselves into an awful scrape, and there's only one thing for us. can't you guess what that is? rouse up! can't you guess?' he repeated impatiently.

'me guess? no! i can't make miss theedory get well; and what else matters?' ned lifted a tear-stained face to say brokenly.

'you've often said you'd be game to run away to sea, if i made up my mind to do it, haven't you? well, all the blame of whatever happens comes on us—you and me. we are bound to suffer the penalty.' alick spoke slowly, and with the air of weighing his words, while ned listened in awe. 'now, then, it seems to me, is our chance to do it. let's set out this very night; they'd never miss us in all the—the worry about theo, until it would be too late to overtake us. we could walk to london in about three days, i expect; and once at the docks it would be queer if you and i couldn't slip quietly on board some north-bound vessel, as we've often planned to do. speak up! will you come?'

and alick breathlessly waited for ned's long-of-coming answer.