When at last in a shower of cheers, Cheviot, the last of the volunteers, climbed the swinging ladder and smiled up at the face bending over—not till then did it seem to Hildegarde that the something he had taken away was restored to her, and her body and her soul made whole again. The people broke through the barrier and pressed round the dripping figures, hurrahing too loud at first to hear how everything was “all right now.” They’d got the anchor where they wanted it, and they hadn’t lost an inch of cable, and had got a ducking only because a few strands of the confounded rope hung up the falling anchor a fraction of a second longer on one side than on the other. Very quickly Cheviot seemed to have enough of public enthusiasm. “You might just let us by, so we can get into dry things.” But the horde pressed closer. How was this, and how was that? And how the onlookers felt in that awful moment when the boat capsized. In vain Cheviot assured them, “Nobody’s a penny the worse, and the kedging can begin as soon as the tide comes in.” Nobody the worse? Yes, one man was. Since he couldn’t get away, Cheviot created a diversion by laughing at the wet and angry German, who stood outside the press, oblivious of other people’s excitement, his own face working with emotion, stretching out his arms and apostrophizing his black-and-yellow cap that floated like some gay sea-bird on the troubled waters. He appealed to the officer to let him go back in the small boat and rescue the precious object. “You’d better go and get dry, Guggenheim, for the sake of your family,” Cheviot called out, and then to those nearest, “You talk about grit. I tell you we had _one_ hero in our crew and one fool, and both together made one large-sized Dutchman.” “Guggenheim?” “Guggenheim. What do you think? That fellow volunteered without being able to swim!” There was a roar of laughing amazement. “Yes, and when we were out there, and the waves were playing battledore with our boat, the fellow says, quite calmly, ‘Ob ve go opsot you fellows yoost most safe me.’ ‘Save yourself?’ says the officer. ‘I not can svim,’ says the volunteer, and then he told us quite firmly, ‘You shall safe me for dat I haf a vife and four childs wid a baby. You vill know me,’ he says, ‘from my cap.’” As Cheviot at last pushed his way out of the crush, Hildegarde, close in his wake, still carrying the overcoat, followed him down the companionway. Near the deserted music-room door she slipped her hand in his. “I’m too wet for you to come near.” But his eyes said nothing of the sort, and dripping as he was, he had her in his arms. CHAPTER XXII