The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-01-17
CRISSCROSS LOVE.
By GRANT ALLEN.
copyright, 1895, by Grant Allen.l
CHAPTER VI

Next day was stormy, and when It's
stormy at Bombay I 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 that 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 strange land-all these
things conspired to produce on her mind
a terrible sinking of awe 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 consideration 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
and gesticulating, without man 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 un-
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
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 ple;:eo hold my hand I don't
know what 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 vas 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, we'll 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 uniIhabitable at certain seasons.
At last Aggie could suffer her alarm no
longer. She shrank back with all
woman's appealing terror.
'Oh, do put your arm round me, Cap
tain Stuart, - she cried in pure feminine
fear. "Whatever shall do? I am SO
frightened! !"
Just at that moment one of the boat
men missed his hold ON the treacherous
water, and of sudden the lighter slued
round, broadside to the waves, and all
was up with them. Aggie clapped her
hands to her ears. There was sound of
rushing water, horrible sense Of wet
ness and helplessness and terror, and
next instant she was aware of great
salt flood rushing in at mouth and eyes
and ears and nostrils. She was sinking
to the bottom! They had capsized the
boat She was drowning!
Down, down, down, in that deep
warm water! Even i'll the midst Of her
terror Aggie was dimly conscious Of the
fact that it was warm, not chilly. II
you've got to be drowned, she thought
to herself vaguely as she gasped and
choked, it's better to be drowned in
warm than cold water. Down, down,
down, to very lowest depths, and then
slowly up againl She reached the sur
oh hoauouc
what waves, what surf, what large
mountains of water! Aggie couldn't
swim, but even if she could no swim
mer, she felt sure, could ever live
through those irresistible pillows.
One of the black boatmen. more ac-
customed to such mishaps, made des-
perate grab at her. Aggie, Mortified at
his dusky hands, wriggled aside and
eluded him. She was going down Sec
ond time now. Even with the water i'll
her ears and eyes and mouth she re-
membered to have read that if you go
down three times all is up with you
Ga foolish superstition, which must only
too often have worked out it's own full
fillment) She gasped and struggled.
All at once she thought to herself,
"Oh, if only Captain Stuart could catch
mer' And straightway, upon the
thought, she felt two strong arms around
her and was aware that Angus Stuart
had come to her rescue.
What followed she hardly knew. To
say the truth, the art of surf swimming
is much simpler than it looks. If you
try to breast the waves or even to 60