Dorothy shifted Cissie, because the little girl’s face was so low down that it kept getting under water.
Cissie, feeling the movement, and believing that her rescuer was letting her go, made a sudden, despairing effort, and gripped Dorothy round the shoulders. Lucky for Dorothy it was that the choking grip did not get her round the throat. It was bad enough as it was, for she could not move her arms, and was dependent on her feet for keeping herself and Cissie from drifting farther out to sea.
“Cissie, let go; leave yourself to me—I will save you!” she panted. But Canute ordering the waves back from the shore was not more helpless in altering their course than she was in making any impression on poor, frantic Cissie. The child clung like a limpet to a rock; Dorothy had never felt anything like the clutch of those thin arms.
She could not hold up against it. She was being dragged down in spite of her struggles. Oh! it was awful, awful. Scenes from her past flashed into the mind of Dorothy as she felt herself slipping, slipping, and felt the thin arms about her neck clutching tighter and tighter.
Then suddenly a great peace stole into her heart; if she had to die in such a way, at least it would solve the problem of to-morrow. If she were not there to win the Lamb Bursary, the governors would not have to be told of that ugly bit in her father’s past which would shut her out from taking the Bursary even after she had won it. Supposing that she did not win it, and it came to Rhoda, if she were dead there would be no one to remind Rhoda that she might not have the Bursary because she was not fit to hold it. Perhaps her death was the best way out for them all. Anyhow, she had no longer strength to struggle—no more power to hold out against the cramping clutch of Cissie’s arms; and it was a relief, when one was so weary, to drop into peace which was so profound.
There was a wild commotion on the shore. Following the example of Dorothy, the Sixth dropped their skirts as they ran, and kicking off their shoes at the edge of the water, plunged in. But they were all under control and acting in concert—no one girl made any attempt to branch out on her own. They were acting now under the orders of Miss Groome, who, also skirtless and shoeless, was standing in the shallow of the water, directing the work of the chain.