One moment she was watching
the fairy fleet that glittered on the lake, the next a hubbub of hoarse,
warning shouts filled the air, the throb of an engine pulsed violently in
her ears, and a motor-boat, overloaded by half-tipsy revellers and
travelling too fast for safety, drove past the bows of the sailing vessel
and veered drunkenly towards her. Instinctively she clutched at her oars.
But they were useless, pinned to the sides of her boat by the press of
others round it. Then, from almost immediately above her, it seemed, a
terse voice--curiously familiar--rapped out a command.
_"Stand up!"_
Hardly knowing what she did, she obeyed, yielding blindly to the peremptory
order. She felt her frail barque rock beneath her feet, then strong arms
grasped her--strong as tempered steel--and lifted her clean up out of the
lurching boat and over its side into another.
Almost before she had time to realise that she was safe, the motor-boat
crashed, head on, into the empty _Reve_, staving in her side so that in an
instant she had filled with water, her gunwale level with the lake. Then,
as though some ghoulish hand had clutched at her from the depths below, she
sank suddenly out of sight.
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