Caricatures and cartoons -- Great Britain; English wit and humor; English wit and humor, Pictorial
Helen did not see her, and Frank, without delay, separated the boom from
the wreck. Then springing into the sea, he directed the course of its
drift for the shore, where the agonized father and the anxious seamen
beheld what was passing, and waited in excited expectation for the
result. The raft bore up its burthen well, and Frank swimming close to
her cheered the terrified girl as they neared the land, and the waves
dashed over them with resistless fury. The spectators calculating the
precise spot where they would take the ground, hastened thither, and more
than one brave fellow rushed through the surf to lend his officer a hand.
They were in the breakers; the boiling and bubbling foam was raging
around them--the noise of the waters was hissing and howling in
their ears, when Frank cut away the lashing that sustained Helen,
and disengaged her from the spar, lest she should be injured by the
concussion as it struck the rocks: supporting her by one arm, he manfully
plied the other; two of the seamen kept near him; a heavy sea rolled them
over, but Frank, though almost exhausted, still maintained his hold;
the next minute they were washed up upon the shore, and, raised on the
shoulders of the people, were carried to dry land.
Extreme, indeed, was the joy of Mr. Wendover as he clasped his child,
and implored blessings on her deliverer, whom in his wet condition, with
his hair hanging about his face, the merchant did not recognize, but
to whom he promised payment of the large reward which he had offered,
supposing that alone to have been the motive for going to the rescue of
Helen. Frank made no reply, for ignorant of Mr. Wendover's forgetfulness,
he imagined that he must be known, and he felt indignant at money being
offered for saving one who was far more precious to him than his own
life. Helen was carried to the hut where her mother had already been
kindly cared for, and the merchant never left his child, who, at first,
sank into insensibility through terror and fatigue, and on her recovery
gazed wildly round, and called upon Frank as her rescuer from death. Mr.
Wendover at first considered it the ravings of a disordered imagination;
but when grown more calm his daughter assured him of the fact, the
merchant exclaimed, "The hand of Providence is in this; he above all
others is the man I wish to see, nor will I any longer oppose your
affection; he has a second time saved my child, and he is worthy of her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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