"Aie!" he shrieked, and "Nay!" cried the other, equally alarmed.
"Dear God!" said Ebenezer, paddling back. "Is't you, Bertrand?"
"Master Eben! Praise be, I thought 'twas a sea-serpent! Thou'rt not drowned?"
They embraced each other and came up sputtering.
"Get on with't, or we shall be yet!" the poet said, as happy as though his valet had brought a boat. Bertrand observed that it was but a matter of time after all, and Ebenezer replied with feeling that death was not so terrible in company as alone.
"What say you," he proposed, in the same spirit wherewith he had used to propose the breath-game to Anna: "shall we have done with't now, together?"
"In any case 'twill not be many minutes," Bertrand said. "My muscles fail me already."
"Look yonder, how the stars are darkened out." Ebenezer pointed to a lightless stretch on the western horizon. "At least we'll not need to weather that storm."
"Not I, 'tis certain." The valet's breath came hard from the exertion of paddling. "Another minute and I'm done."
"Howe'er you've injured me before, friend, I forgive you. We'll go together."
"Ere the moment comes," Bertrand panted, "I've a thing to say, sir — "
"Not sir!" cried the poet. "Think you the sea cares who's master and man?"
"- 'tis about my gambling on the Poseidon," Bertrand continued.
"Long since forgiven! You lost my money: I pray you had good use of't! What need have I of money now?"
"There's more, sir. You recall the Parson Tubman offered odds — "
"Forgiven! What more's to lose, when you had plucked me clean?"
But Bertrand would not be consoled. "What a wretch I felt, sir! I answered to your name, ate at your place, claimed the honors of your post — "
"Speak no more of't!"
"Methought 'Tis he should tumble Lucy on these sheets, not I, and then I lost your forty pound as well! And you, sir, in a hammock in the fo'c'sle, suffering in my place!"
" 'Tis over and done," Ebenezer said kindly.
"Hear me out, sir! When that fearful storm was done and we were westering, I vowed to myself I'd have ye back that money and more, to pay ye for your hardship. The Parson had got up a new swindle on raising the Virginia Capes, and I took a notion to woo Miss Lucy privily to my cause. Then we would fleece the fleecer!"
" 'Tis a charitable resolve, but you'd naught to use for stakes — "
"Nor did some others that had been gulled," Bertrand replied. "They threatened to take a stick to Tubman for all he was a cleric. But he smelled what was in the wind, and gave 'em a chance to bet again on Maryland. They'd but to pledge some property or other — "
"I'faith!" cried Ebenezer. "His cassock frocked a very Jew!"
"He had the papers drawn like any lawyer: we'd but to sign, and we could wager to the value of the property."
"You signed a pledge?" Ebenezer asked incredulously.
"Aye, sir."
"Dear God! To what?"
"To Malden, sir. I — "
"To Malden!" Such was the poet's amazement he forgot to paddle, and the next wave covered his head. When he could speak again he demanded, "Yet surely 'twas no more than a pound or two?"
"I shan't conceal it, sir; 'twas rather more."
"Ten pounds, then? Twenty? Ha, out with't, fellow! What's forty pounds more to a drowning man? What is't to me if you lost a hundred?"
"My very thought, sir," Bertrand said faintly; his strength was almost gone. " 'Twas e'en for that I told ye, now we're drowning men. Lookee how the dark comes closer! Methinks I hear the sea rising yonder, too, but I shan't be here to feel the rain. Farewell, sir."
"Wait!" Ebenezer cried, and clutched his servant by one arm to help support him.
"I'm done, sir; let me go."
"And I, Bertrand; I shall go with thee! Was't two hundred you lost, pray?"
" 'Twas but a pledge, sir," Bertrand said. "Who's to say I lost a farthing? For aught I know thou'rt a wealthy man this moment."
"What did you pledge, man? Three hundred pounds?"
Bertrand had stopped treading water and would have gone under had not Ebenezer, paddling furiously, held him up with one hand by the shirt front.
"What doth it matter, sir? I pledged it all."
"All!"
"The grounds, the manor, the sot-weed in the storehouse — Tubman holds it all."
"Pledge my legacy!"
"Prithee let me drown, sir, if ye won't yourself."
"I shall!" said Ebenezer. "Sweet Malden gone? Then farewell, and God forgive you!"
"Farewell, sir!"
"Stay, I am with thee yet!" Master and man embraced each other. "Farewell! Farewell!"
"Farewell!" Bertrand cried again, and they went under. Immediately both fought free and struggled up for air.
"This will not do!" Ebenezer gasped. "Farewell!"
"Farewell!" said Bertrand. Again they embraced and went under, and again fought free.
"I cannot do't," said Bertrand, "though my muscles scarce can move, they bring me up."
"Adieu, then," said the poet grimly. "Thy confession gives me strength to die alone. Farewell!"
"Farewell!"
As before, Ebenezer took a breath before sinking and so could not do more than put his face under. This time, however, his mind was made up: he blew out the air, bade the world a last farewell, and sank in earnest.
A moment later he was up again, but for a different reason.
"The bottom! I felt the bottom, Bertrand! 'Tis not two fathom deep!"
"Nay!" gasped the valet, who had been near submerged himself. "How can that be, in the middle of the ocean? Haply 'twas a whale or other monster."
" 'Twas hard sand bottom!" Ebenezer insisted. He went below again, this time fearlessly, and from a depth of no more than eight feet brought up a fistful of sand for proof.
"Belike a shoal, then," Bertrand said, unimpressed. "As well forty fathom as two; we can't stand up in either. Farewell!"
"Wait! 'Tis no cloud yonder, man, but an ocean isle we've washed to! Those are her cliffs that hide the stars; that sound is the surf against her coast!"
"I cannot reach it."
"You can! 'Tis not two hundred yards to shore, and less to a standing place!" Fearing for his own endurance, he waited no longer for his man to he persuaded, but struck out westwards for the starless sky, and soon heard Bertrand panting and splashing behind. With every stroke his conjecture seemed more likely; the sound of gentle surf grew distant and recognizable, and the dark outline defined itself more sharply.
"If not an isle, at least 'twill be a rock," he called over his shoulder, "and we can wait for passing ships."
After a hundred yards they could swim no farther; happily, Ebenezer found that by standing on tiptoe he could just clear the surface with his chin.
"Very well for you, that are tall," lamented Bertrand, "but I must perish here in sight of land!"
Ebenezer, however, would hear of no such thing: he instructed the valet to float along behind him, hands on the poet's shoulders for support. It was tedious going, especially for Ebenezer, only the balls of whose feet were on the bottom: the weight behind pulled him off balance at every step, and though Bertrand rode clear, his weight held Ebenezer at a constant depth, so that only between waves could he catch his breath. The manner of their progress was thus: in each trough Ebenezer secured his footing and drew a breath; when the wave came he stroked with both arms from his breast and, with his head under, rode perhaps two feet — one of which would be lost in the slight undertow before he regained his footing. Half an hour, during which they covered no more than forty or fifty feet, was enough to exhaust his strength, but by then the water was just shallow enough for the valet to stand as well. It required another thirty minutes to drag themselves over the remaining distance: had there been breakers they might yet have drowned, but the waves were never more than two feet high, and oftener less than one. At last they reached a pebbly beach and, too fatigued for words, crawled on all fours to the base of the nearby cliff, where they lay some while as if a-swoon.