beat him to his garlands now; that was clear; clear, too, that there
really wasn't much peril, after all. So the motley gathering of idlers
became content to stand upon the edge of the boat pavilion, gazing most
eagerly, gossiping not a little....

The bystander, like the Athenian, ever desires to see or to hear some
new thing. And really this spectacle was new enough to satisfy the
most exacting.

Perhaps a mile over the water, a hundred yards or so from shore, the
little boat Lady Jane lay side up on the sea. To it clung a young girl,
well above water; near her appeared the head of a young man, a swimmer.
So far, so good. But there was something wrong about this swimmer,
something grossly discordant in his position in the picture. It
developed upon close examination that the interval between him and the
overturned boat was not decreasing. It was widening indeed; widening
quite steadily.... Yes, there it was; unfortunately no longer open to
doubt. The man was pulling for the shore and safety, leaving the girl to
sink or swim as she preferred.

The sight was a strange one, resembling a defiance of established law.
It staggered the eye, like the sight of water running uphill. People had
seen the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and kissed the Pope's toe; but they
had never seen anything like this.

A nasal, hawk-nosed individual in eye-glasses voiced the sentiments of
all: "If that's your Southern chivalry, Warlow, the less I see of it
the better."

Another spoke more sympathetically, yet with unchanged point: "Poor