The Coming Wave; Or, The Hidden Treasure of High Rock, Oliver Optic [story read aloud TXT] 📗
- Author: Oliver Optic
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She was gone an hour, and then an other hour. He called to her, but she came not, and even the warning of the muttering thunder did not hasten her return. But she came at last, and Leopold hastened to get under way, though he feared that the storm would be down upon him before he could reach the Orion.
"We are going to have a tremendous shower," said Leopold, anxiously, as he shoved off the boat.
"I'm not afraid; and if I get wet, it won't hurt me," replied Rosabel, who actually enjoyed the flashing lightning and the booming thunder, and gazed with undaunted eyes upon the black masses of cloud that were rolling up from the south-east and from the north-west.
"It looks just exactly as it did on the day the Waldo was wrecked," added Leopold. "It blew a perfect hurricane then, and it may to-day."
"If you are alarmed, Leopold, we can return," suggested Rosabel.
"We can hardly do that, now, for the tide has risen so high that the beach is nearly covered, and my boat would be dashed to pieces, if we have much of a squall."[Pg 341]
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked the fair maiden, who was deeply impressed by the earnest manner of the boatman.
"I hope not," replied he, more cheerfully, for he did not wish to alarm her. "If I can only get into Dipper Bay, which is hardly half a mile from here, we shall be all right; and we may have time to run into the river."
Dipper Bay was a little inlet, almost landlocked, in which the water was deep enough to float his sloop at this time of tide, and its high rocky shores would afford him a perfect protection from the fury of any squall, or even hurricane. But Leopold felt that his chances of reaching this secure haven were but small, for the breeze was very light.
The Rosabel was but a short distance from the shore when the wind entirely subsided, and the long rollers were as smooth as glass. The lightning glared with fearful intensity, and the thunder boomed like the convulsions of an earthquake. By this time Rosabel, who had before enjoyed the sublimity of the coming storm, now began to realize its terrors, and to watch the handsome boatman with the deepest anxiety.[Pg 342] The sails flapped idly in the motionless air, and Dipper Bay was still half a mile distant.
"Don't be alarmed, Miss Hamilton," said Leopold, as he threw off his coat and vest, dropped his suspenders from his shoulders, and rolled up his shirt sleeves above the elbows. "If the squall will keep off only a few moments, we shall be in a safe place."
The skipper evidently "meant business;" and, shipping the long oars, he worked with a zeal which seemed to promise happy results, and Rosabel began to feel a little reassured. But the sloop was too large and too broad on the beam to be easily rowed, and her progress was necessarily very slow.
"Can't I help you, Leopold?" asked the maiden, when she saw what a tremendous effort the boatman was making.
"You may take the tiller and steer for Dip Point, if you please," replied Leopold, knowing that his beautiful passenger would be better satisfied if she could feel that she was doing something.
Leopold plied his oars with all the vigor of a manly frame, intent upon reaching the little[Pg 343] bay, where the high rocks would shelter his craft from the fury of the storm. Then a breeze of wind came and he resumed his place at the tiller. He had almost reached the haven when he saw coming down over the waters a most terrific squall. Before he could haul down his mainsail, the tempest struck the Rosabel. He placed his fair charge in the bottom of the boat, which the savage wind was driving towards the dangerous rocks. Before he could do anything to secure the sail, the main-sheet parted at the boom. He cast off the halyards; but the sail was jammed, and would not come down.
The Rosabel was almost upon the rocks. Seizing an oar, Leopold, satisfied that he could do nothing to save the boat, worked her away from the rocks, so that she would strike upon the narrow beach he had just left. The fierce squall was hurling her with mad speed upon the shore. By the most tremendous exertion, and at the imminent peril of his life, he succeeded in guiding her to the beach, upon which she struck with prodigious force, crushing in her keel and timbers beneath the shock. Without a word of explanation, he grasped the fair[Pg 344] Rosabel in his arms, and leaped into the angry surges, which were driven high upon the rocks above him. The tide had risen so that there was hardly room under the cliff for him to stand; but he bore her to this only partial refuge from the fury of the storm.
The tempest increased in violence, and the huge billows rolled in with impetuous fury upon him. Grasping his fair burden in his arms, with Rosabel clinging to him in mortal terror, he paused a moment to look at the angry sea. There was a narrow shelf of rock near him, against which the waves beat with terrible violence. If he could only get beyond this shelf, which projected out from the cliffs, he could easily reach the Hole in the Wall, where Harvey Barth had saved himself in just such a storm. He had borne Rosabel some distance along the beach, both drenched by the lashing spray, and his strength was nearly exhausted. The projecting shelf was before him, forbidding for the moment his further progress.
The Coming Wave. Page 345
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[Pg 345]Placing his left foot on a rock, his fair but heavy burden on his knee, clasping her waist with his left hand, while his right was fastened for support in a crevice of the cliff, he paused for an instant to recover his breath, and watch for a favorable chance to escape from his perilous position. Rosabel, in her terror, had thrown her arms around his neck, clinging to him with all her might. When he paused, she felt, reposing on his powerful muscles, that she was safe—she confessed it afterwards; though, in that terrible sea, and near those cruel rocks, the strength of the strongest man was but weakness. Leopold waited. If the sea would only recede for an instant, it would give him the opportunity to reach the broader beach beyond the shelf, over which he could pass to the Hole in the Wall. It was a moment of hope, mingled with a mighty fear.
A huge billow, larger than any he had yet seen, was rolling in upon him, crested and reeking with foam, and might dash him and his feeble charge, mangled and torn, upon the jagged rocks. Still panting from the violence of his exertion, he braced his nerves and his stout frame to meet the terrible shock.
With every muscle strained to the utmost tension, he waited The Coming Wave. In this[Pg 346] attitude, with the helpless maiden clinging to him for life, with the wreck of his fine yacht near, he was a noble subject for an inspired artist.
The coming wave buried him and the fair maiden in its cold embrace. It broke, and shattered itself in torrents of milky foam upon the hard rocks. But the larger and higher the wave, the farther it recedes. Leopold stood firm, though he was shaken in every fiber of his frame by the shock. The retiring water—retiring only for an instant, to come again with even greater fury—gave him his opportunity, and he improved it. Swooping like a strong eagle, beneath the narrow shelf of rock, he gained the broader sands beyond the reach of the mad billows. It blew a hurricane for some time. The stranded yacht was ground into little pieces by the sharp rocks; but her skipper and his fair passenger were safe.
On the identical flat rock in the Hole in the Wall where the steward of the Waldo had seated himself, after the wreck, Leopold placed his precious burden. He sat down by her side, utterly exhausted, and unable to speak. He[Pg 347] breathed very hardly, groaning heavily at each respiration, for he had exerted himself to the verge of human endurance.
"O, Leopold," gasped poor Rosabel, gazing with tender interest upon her preserver, "you have saved me, but you have killed yourself!"
The gallant young man tried to speak, but he could only smile in his agony. Taking her hand, he pressed it, to indicate his satisfaction at what he had done.
"What shall I do?" cried the poor girl.
Leopold could only press her hand again; but she felt that she must do something for him. Throwing off her wet gloves, she began to rub his temples, to which he did not object. But in a few minutes more he was able to speak.
"I am only tired," gasped the boatman. "I shall be all right in a few moments."
Then the rain began to pour down in torrents. Leopold rose from the rock, and conducted Rosabel to an overhanging cliff, in the ravine, which partially sheltered them from the storm. The wind continued to howl, as though the squall had ended in a gale; but the rain soon ceased to fall, and Leopold helped his fair companion to the summit of the cliff.[Pg 348]
"There is nothing left of the Rosabel," said Leopold, as he gazed down upon the white-capped billows which lashed the jagged rocks below. "She went to pieces like an egg-shell."
"Never mind the boat, Leopold. I am so thankful that our lives were spared," replied Rosabel.
"O, I don't care for the boat. I only thank God that you were saved. I thought we should both be dashed in pieces on the rocks."
"I should have been, if you had not been so strong and brave, Leopold. You might have left me, and saved yourself, without much trouble."
"Left you!" exclaimed Leopold, gazing into her beautiful face. "I would rather have been ground up into inch pieces on the rocks, than do that, Miss Hamilton!"
Rosabel believed him, and the tears flowed down her cheeks, as she brushed away from her eyes the auburn locks, soaked with salt water, and gazed into his earnest, manly face.
Before the storm had subsided, the Orion, bearing the agonized parents, was floundering in the billows off High Rock, with only a close-reefed[Pg 349] foresail set. Leopold and Rosabel both made signals, to assure the father and mother of their safety. An hour later, when the waters were comparatively still, there was a joyous scene in the cabin of the Orion. Hot tears dropped from the eyes of father and mother, and convulsive embraces were exchanged. Leopold's right hand was nearly twisted off by the overjoyed parents and friends of her who had been saved from the Coming Wave.
The yacht sailed into the river again, and on the passage, Leopold, assisted by Rosabel, related all the particulars of the loss of the Rosabel, and of their narrow escape from the rocks and the billows on the beach under High Rock.
If Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton had before regarded Leopold, in any sense, as a servant, or even a boatman, they no longer considered him as anything but a social equal, a noble and dear friend, who had risked his life to save their beloved daughter. If they were grateful and devoted to him, not less so was Rosabel herself.
The party stayed a fortnight at the Sea Cliff House, and enjoyed themselves even more than during the preceding season. Every pleasant[Pg 350] day a party went out in the Orion, and, having no boat of his own now, Leopold was glad to go with them. On the day after the storm, the mate of the yacht had left Rockhaven for New York, and the late skipper of the Rosabel was requested to perform his duty on board, which he did to the entire satisfaction of Captain Bounce. After the mate had been absent a week, the mate pro tem. of the Orion, as the yacht was running out of the river, discovered a small sloop, headed for the light. Her hull and her sails were intensely white. She was a beautiful craft, and appeared to be entirely new. She was evidently a yacht, and Leopold knew that she did not belong to any of the places in the lower bay. The word
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