Читать книгу The Forge in the Forest - Sir Charles G. D. Roberts - Страница 12

When they had become but specks on the dim water, I doffed my clothes, took my knife between my teeth, and swam across to the sand-spit. There was a low moon, obscured by thin and slowly drifting clouds, and as I swam through the faint trail of it, Marc must have seen me coming. Nevertheless he gave no sign, and I could see that his head drooped forward upon his breast. An awful fear came down upon me, and for a second or two I was like to sink, so numb I turned at the thought that perchance the savages had put the knife to him before quitting. I recovered, however, as I called to mind the orders which Tamin had rehearsed to me ere starting on his venture; for I knew how sorely the Black Abbé was feared by his savage flock. What they deemed him to have commanded, that would they do.

Drawing closer now, I felt the ground beneath my feet.

"Marc," I called softly, "I'm coming, lad!"

The drooped head was lifted.

"Father!" he exclaimed. And there was something like a sob in that cry of joy. It caught my heart strangely, telling me he was still a boy for all he had borne himself so manfully in the face of sudden and appalling peril. Now the long tension was loosed. He was alone with me. As I sprang to him and cut the thongs that held him, one arm went about my neck and I was held very close for the space of some few heart-beats. Then he fetched a deep breath, stretched his cramped limbs this way and that, and said simply, "I knew you would come, Father! I knew you would find a way!"