The Real Charlotte. 103 



" Luff ! " shouted Christopher, letting go the head sheets. 

 " Luff, or we're over ! " 



Lambert let go the main sheet and put the tiller hard 

 down with all the strength he was master of, but he was just 

 too late. In that moment, when he had allowed his 

 thoughts to leave his steering, the yacht had dragged her- 

 self a thought beyond his control. The rough hand of the 

 wind struck her, and, as she quivered and reeled under the 

 blow, another and fiercer gust caught hold of her, and flung 

 her flat on her side on the water. 



Before Christopher had well realised what had happened, 

 he had gone deep under water, come to the surface again, 

 and was swimming, with a vision before him of a white 

 figure with a red cap falling headlong from its perch. He 

 raised himself and shook the water out of his eyes, and 

 swimming a stroke or two to get clear of the mast, with its 

 sails heaving prone on the water like the pinions of a great 

 wounded bird, he saw over the shoulders of the hurrying 

 waves the red cap and the white dress drifting away to 

 leeward. Through the noise of the water in his ears, and 

 the confusion of his startled brain, he heard Lambert's voice 

 shouting frantically he did not know what ; the whole force 

 of his nature was set and centred on overtaking the red cap, 

 to which each stroke was bringing him nearer and nearer as 

 it appeared and reappeared ahead of him between the 

 steely backs of the waves. She lay horribly still, with the 

 water washing over her face ; and as Christopher caught 

 her dress, and turned, oreathless, to try to fight his way 

 back with her to the wrecked yacht, he seemed to hear a 

 hundred voices ringing in his ears and telling him that she 

 was dead. He was a good and practised swimmer, but not 

 a powerful one. His clothes hung heavily about him, and 

 with one arm necessarily given to his burden, and the waves 

 and wind beating him back, he began to think that his task 

 was more than he would be able to accompHsh. He had 

 up to this, in the intensity of the shock and struggle, forgotten 

 Lambert's existence, but now the agonised shouts that he 

 had heard came back to him, and he raised himself high in 

 the water and stared about with a new anxiety. To his in- 

 tense relief he saw that the yacht was still afloat, was, in 

 fact, drifting slowly down towards him, and in the water 



