Miss Mordaunt was coming towards them. She was holding Dorothy, to whom Cissie clung with the fierce clutch of despair.
“We cannot pass Cissie along—she is too frightened,” panted Miss Mordaunt, as she reached Hazel with her burden, and clung to the chain for a minute to get back her breath. “Dorothy is so frightfully done, too; but she will bear that clutch until we can get her ashore.”
“We can pass Dorothy along, with Cissie clinging to her,” said Hazel, raising herself a little in the water, and reaching out her hand to get a grip of Dorothy. “Can you swim alongside, Miss Mordaunt, to see that Cissie does not slip away?”
“That will be best,” agreed Miss Mordaunt, and striking out, she swam slowly along the chain of girls as they one after the other accepted and thrust forward the helpless two. When Dora, fourth from the end, laid hold of Dorothy, Hazel swung slowly round in the water, and swimming up behind Dorothy seized her on the other side, holding on to her, and helping to push her from girl to girl as the chain accepted and passed her on.
Cissie was not struggling at all now, though the tightness of her clutch never relaxed; she was realizing that she was being rescued, and her panic was dropping from her. She was acutely conscious, and her black eyes looked so frightened and mournful that no one had the heart to reproach her for all the peril into which her wild panic had brought the others.
The Fourth had managed to hold the chain without a break, and mightily proud they were of their prowess. They even raised a cheer when the last of the Sixth came out of the water; but it died away as they saw Dorothy lying helpless on the beach, while Miss Ball, at a little distance, was being wrapped in blankets by the woman from the lock-house.
Dorothy was not unconscious; she was only so battered and beaten by the struggle in the water that just at the first she could not lift a finger to help herself.
Miss Ball was coming round, so the woman from the lock-house said, and she offered her own bed for the use of the two who had suffered most.
Miss Groome felt that, having borne so much, it was better for them to bear a little more, and be carried to where they could have more comfort. She issued a few crisp orders. The girls, still in their wet clothes, ran to obey. Then, while the Fourth dived into their tents to dress with all the speed of which they were capable, the Sixth in their wet garments loaded Miss Ball, Dorothy, and Cissie on to three trucks which were standing under the wall of the lifeboat house, and harnessing themselves to them, started at a brisk pace for the school. They had no dry clothes on the shore to change into, and so it was wisdom to move—and to move as quickly as they could. The woman from the lock-house had lent them blankets to cover the half-drowned ones; on to these blankets they spread skirts; then each girl wrapping her own skirt round her, they set off from the shore at the best pace they could make.