'Smiles' by Eliot H. Robinson (ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📕

True, he would save her for himself. He could not keep the thought out of his surge of hope; but the erstwhile bitterness was swept away. Nothing else mattered, if Rose could be saved. Measured by the ticking of a clock, the action was taking place with dramatic speed; but, to his quivering mind, it dragged woefully, and the periods when the light failed caused him to cry aloud.

Suddenly the searchlight of the sky was turned on, dazzlingly, and he saw the unknown youth wading ashore, bearing in his arms a tiny form whose animated arms and legs told the story of baby Don's timely rescue; he saw Ethel running wildly toward them, to gather her offspring into her outstretched arms; he saw Philip on the float, in the act of casting himself prone. Then the picture faded once more and he railed at the ensuing blackness as though it had been a wilful, animate thing. This time it lasted longer, and the man's deep breath came in rasping sobs before the scene was again revealed. Now there were two forms standing unsteadily on the float; two forms that were almost one, for the man in gray was holding the girl in clinging white close to him. Still, she could stand; Smiles was alive, she was saved! And the watcher's lips gave vent to a shout of relief and joy, a shout which ended in a groan. All the power of his masterful will was not enough to make him do that which he longed to—turn his tortured eyes from the picture which spelt life to Rose, and death to all his golden dreams.

Now he saw them moving slowly up the pier, the girl still leaning heavily against the man, and supported by his encircling arm. They paused, and Rose half turned, and slowly waved her hand toward the sea in a reassuring gesture, and Donald whispered, "God bless her. She knows that I have been a witness to the whole thing, and she remembers, thinks of me, even at ... at this time. I cannot see her face, but I know that she is smiling."

The lingering effulgence from a final wave of light vanished; the two forms toiling up the shore blended into the returning shadows; the curtain of darkness fell, and the drama was ended.

"Why could it not have been I?" groaned Donald. The wind, already spent from its brief fury, chortled softly among the shrouds as though it was laughing at him, another mortal made the victim of capricious Fate. Surely it knew that he would have served as well as its agent and would only too gladly have given his very life for Smiles, but it had wilfully sent him away and sent Opportunity to Philip.

Heroes and martyrs; what are they, after all, but the creatures of that whimsical goddess? Most men and most women have within them the courage to dare all things if the occasion comes, but to a few only, chosen, it often seems, by chance, is that occasion granted. Yet, how often has the history of life, both racial and individual, been changed by such an event!

Donald knew his star had sunk below the far horizon and that Philip's had been carried to its zenith. The lover was likewise the rescuer. It were as though the play had been written and the stage set for no other purpose than to bring the romance to its culmination, and, now that this had been accomplished, the useless properties were being removed. The storm was over, ending as quickly as it had begun; the cloud-legions were hurrying eastward overhead to form the setting of another tragedy or farce somewhere else, or to return to the nothing which had given them birth. A few faint flashes and a distant rumble or two marked their passing.

Along the western edge of the world appeared a narrow streak of ruddy light, like burnished copper beneath the blackness above. Blazing forth with the glory of a conqueror, the sun appeared within it, and seemed to poise immovable for an instant 'twixt heaven and earth, while its dazzling rays turned the living waters to molten gold. Then it slowly sank from sight, and, like wraiths of the dying day, the night-shadows began to creep out from the shore, deeper and deeper, nearer and nearer, until they engulfed the little craft and its owner.

With a sudden decision, Donald played out the sheet and put the tiller over. The boat swung around into the path of the wind and fled seaward again. He could not go home, now. He must fight out the battle with self, as it is always fought, alone, and what place could be more fitting than out there in the darkness, on the face of the troubled waters?