To the watchers on the shore, it seemed hours since he had disappeared, days since chubby little Mac had been swept out of sight.  The beach chanced to be deserted, that afternoon; Dr. McAlister could not swim a stroke, Phebe was powerless to do anything in such clothing as she wore, and Billy was not an expert swimmer.  Hope’s anguish was almost unbearable; yet, for the moment, Theodora’s suffering was greater than that of her sister.  She spoke no word; she only stood, tall and stately and dry-eyed, staring into the great green, curving waves that had swallowed up her husband and, with him, all the best that had made life for her since her girlhood.  There was small chance for an inexperienced swimmer in such a sea as that, least of all for one burdened with the weight of a four-year-old child.

One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Slowly the pitiless waves came crashing down on the sand.  They were so mighty, so unrelenting in their grim beauty.  If one must be drowned, it would have been better to die in a sunless sea, not in the gorgeousness of a day like this.  Five.  Six.  Then Theodora sprang forward with a little, low, choking moan.  The seventh wave washed up at her very feet the form of her husband, still breathing and with Mac’s body dangling from his unconscious grasp.

Under such circumstances, some men would have thanked Providence.  Dr. McAlister was of other stuff.

“Phebe, come here!” he commanded.  “You know what to do.  You go to work on Mac, while I try to see if anything can be done for Billy.  Work for your life, for there’s a life hanging on yours now.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Yes dear, Uncle Billy was almost drowned, in trying to get you out of the water.”

“Drowned dead, mamma?”

“Yes, Mac.”

For a minute, Mac silently contemplated the possibility of his uncle’s dying.  Then his face dimpled into a smile once more, as he said,—­

“If he was dead, mamma, I should get a little warm ’pirit and put in his stomach, and ven he would be all well again.”

It seemed strange to Hope to be laughing once more.  All the night through, a heavy cloud of anxiety had rested upon Valhalla where one hero at least was lying.  It had been no easy feat which Billy Farrington had attempted, and no one was more keenly aware of the fact than he, himself.  Well and strong enough for all practical purposes, his physique in reality was no match for men whose boyhood had been sound, and no match at all for the fury of Quantuck surf in a gale.  He had realized all that, yet he had not hesitated for an instant as to what was the one thing for him to do.  Billy’s code of honor was a simple one and a straight-forward.  It even included the possibility of laying down one’s life for a little child.

All that night, the doctor worked over him.  For a long time, it seemed to him a losing fight; but he prolonged it to the end, and in the end he was victorious.  Phebe had succeeded in bringing Mac to consciousness, and she was superintending Hope’s putting him to bed; the doctor had ordered the others out of the room, and he and Theodora were alone with Billy when at last the blue eyes opened.