She took the little bottle, and while he helped her on with her waterproof cloak he spoke again in his kindly Northumbrian familiarity:
“It’s a good thing we’ve got Mr. Trist with us this night, that it is! He’s what Captain Barrow would call a strong tower.”
Brenda smiled rather wanly as she hurried away.
“Yes,” she answered; “I am very glad we have him to rely upon.”
Mrs. Wylie seemed scarcely to notice that Brenda stepped into the boat and sat down beside her. The little lady was making a brave fight against her growing anxiety. She even laughed when the sail filled with a loud flap, and nearly precipitated Cobbold into the water. Crouching low, the two women sat in silence. It was now blowing stiffly, and perhaps Cobbold would have done better to take a reef in the light sail; but in his anxiety to reach the river without delay he risked the lives of his two passengers more freely than he would have dared to do in a cooler moment. As is usually the case, his confidence was greater under excitement, and no mishap befell the little boat.
VII
A Sportsman’s Death
When they reached the mouth of the river they found the longboat lying alongside the huge shelving rock used as a landing-stage on account of its convenience during all varieties of tide.
The man watching there had heard or seen nothing of Mr. Trist or Admiral Wylie. The ladies sat for some time in the stern of the gig, wrapped in their waterproof cloaks, without speaking. Then Brenda begged to be landed. She was shivering with cold and anxiety. She walked slowly up the smooth surface of the rock and disappeared. Once out of sight of the two boats which lay heaving softly on the bosom of the rising tide, she quickened her pace, keeping to the narrow path trodden on the peaty soil by Admiral Wylie and Theo Trist in turn. It was probable that the human beings who had passed along that scarcely visible track, from the days of the Flood down to the time that this little English maiden pressed her way through the silver-birch trees, could be counted upon the fingers of two hands. There was nothing to attract the curious up the deep gorge formed by this unknown stream. Far inland, over impassable rocks, lay the corner of a huge glacier from whence the river received its chill waters. There was no natural beauty to draw thither the artist, no animal life to attract the naturalist, no vast height to tempt the mountaineer. Here century after century the trout had lain, head up stream, to catch what God might send them. In the lower waters, year after year, the sturdy salmon had pressed past each other through rill and whirlpool, with gills flattened to the fresh cool waters of the snowfield.
In all human probability no woman’s footprint had impressed itself upon that turf before.
The valley took a turn westward round a great sloping forest of pine and silver-birch, harmoniously mingled, about half a mile from the sea, and soon afterwards the hills closed menacingly over the noisy river. The water here was very rough and broken. At times a great smooth pool, half an acre in extent, twenty feet in depth, would lie at the foot of a series of roaring waterfalls of no great height, but infinite variety. Again, there were long broken rapids, which only a salmon could expect to stem, and here and there smooth runs almost navigable for a boat.
Regardless of peaty pool and treacherous rivulets running over brilliant turf, Brenda hurried on. The mere bodily fatigue was a comfort to her, the very act of breaking the small branches in her way a solace. It was now nearly midnight, and already on the snowfield above her the pearly pink light of morning crept on its glistening way. The twilight was no longer lowering, but full of fresh promise. A new day softly smiled upon the silent land which had known no night; but to the solitary girl it brought little hope.
Suddenly she stopped and listened intently. A distant crackle of dry wood beneath a human tread repeated itself. Someone was approaching rapidly.
A moment later Theo Trist stood before her, but she scarcely recognised him. Her first feeling was one of utter surprise that his meek eyes could look so resolute. The man’s face was changed, and he who stood before Brenda was not the well-bred, quiet gentleman, but the lost soldier. She did not realize then that he had been fifteen hours on his feet with hardly any food. She scarcely noticed that his clothes were wet, and clinging to his limbs, and that he was without his waterproof. All she saw, all she had eyes for, was that strange incongruous face where resolution dominated so suddenly.
He it was who broke the silence, and he was forced to shout, because they were so close to the river.
“Where is Mrs. Wylie?” he asked.
“She is at the mouth of the river,” replied Brenda—“in the boat, waiting.”
“Come away!” he shouted, beckoning with his head, and they moved through the pinewood further inland, where the brawl of the stream was less disagreeable.
Then he took her hand in his, and looked down into her face with unconscious scrutiny.
“You must go back to her, Brenda,” he said, “and tell her that Admiral Wylie is dead. I found him in a whirlpool about half a mile above here.”
“When was that?” asked the girl mechanically.
“Oh, an hour ago. I have been all this time in the water recovering … getting him ashore.”
“Was he quite dead?”
“Quite dead. It must have happened early in the day, for his lunch was still in his creel.”
“Where is he … now?” whispered Brenda, looking through the trees from which Trist had emerged.
“Through there, on the bank. I began carrying him down to the boat, but had to give
