San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-01-13
CHAPTER VI

Next day was stormy, and when it's
stormy at Bombay can tell YOU it
really is stormy. The Indus arrived in
due course in the open bay, surf run
ming very high. No surf in the world
like the surf tina. beats upon Malabar
point in heavy weather. The passengers
were transferred to the little lighter
boats which take people ashore from the
ocean steamers. To Aggie, who had
never been away from England before,
the whole scene Of the landing was pc
culiarly terrifying The sight of the
black boatmen, naked to the waist, all
clamoring and jabbering in their un-
known tongue; the high surf ON which
the little boats danced up and down
like corks; the novelty Of the situation;
the painful feeling Of parting from her
fellow voyagers, with whom she had
struck up good many friendships on
the way, and the horrid Sense of being
abandoned to the tender mercies of
strangers in a strange land-all these
things conspire1 to produce on her mind
terrible sinking of ave and terror.
She looked around her helplessly. Mrs.
Mackinnon, her chaperon, was to land
in the same boat, but that fact, ! will
frankly confess, gave Aggie far less COM
fort than the other confederation that
Angus Stuart was also to accompany
them. Women are timorous creatures.
They need the consolation of the oppo-
site sex. Aggie didn't think she could
ever have stepped into that dreadful
boat, all dancing on the surf and with
those strange black creatures shouting
end gesticulating, without a mau to
take care of her, and if man, then
Angus Stuart by preference. She wasn't
afraid of him, she said to herself, and
she knew he would protect her against
sea and savages, for as so many savages
Aggie simply envisaged those good I'M
sophisticated Bombay boatmen.
She hardly knew how she ever tum
bled into that boat, but she tumbled in
somehow, with Angus Stuart's aid, and
sat covering in the stern, while the
spray dashed up against the sides in a
surprising manner. In very few min
| utes the boat was full and the boatmen
began to get under weigh for the quay
with strange cries and loud CALCULATIONS
Aggie had never seen anything so ter
rife in her life, and though Angus as
sured her there wasn't the slightest dan
ger-I'm afraid must admit she some
times thought of him as Angus in her
| own heart, though she was on her way
out to marry Phil Gilman-she couldn't
quite believe him. At each very big
wave, she crouched nearer and nearer
him.
"Oh, Captain Stuart" she cried at
last, edo please hold my hand don't
know what l shall ever do We can't
stop and get out? Oh, am so frighten-
edl"
The young man tried his best to as
sure her there was no danger, but Aggie
was inconsolable. And indeed the surf
was running very high and dangerous.
Even the native boatmen looked ahead
with evident apprehension. The waves
broke over them once or twice and
drenched them. 1t was dreadful to have
crossed the Mediterranean and the Red
sea in perfect safety and then to be
tossed and bullied like this, well within
sight of Bombay harbor. The nearer
they got to shore the more appalling, OF
course, did the surf become. It's famous,
that surf. 1t makes Malabar point itself
almost uninhabitable at certain seasons.
At last Aggie could suffer her alarm nc
longer She shrank back with all q
woman's appealing terror.
"Oh, do put your arm round me, Cap
tain Stuart" she cried in pure feminine
fear. Whatever shall do? l am Sc
frightened"
Just at that moment one of the boat
men missed his hold on the treacherou!
water, and of a sudden the lighter slueC
round, broadside to the waves, and al
was up with them. Aggie clapped he
hands to her ears. There was sound O
rushing water, a horrible sense of wet
ness and helplessness and terror, ant
: next instant she was aware of grea
salt flood rushing in at mouth and eye
and ears aud nostrils. She was sinking
to the bottom! They had capsized tn
: boat She was drowninGl-
To y on ned rumurru~