Free The Captive by Victoria Holt Page A

have gone in the short time I had taken to retrieve the notes. I was clutching them in my hands now as I managed to make my way to the deck. There was pandemonium. People were surging towards the rail. In vain I looked among them for my parents. I suddenly felt terrifyingly alone among that pushing screaming crowd.
    It was horrific. The wind seemed to take a malicious delight in tormenting us. My hair was loose and flying wildly about my head, being tossed over my eyes so that I could not see. The notes were pulled from my hands. For a few seconds I watched them doing a frivolous dance above my head before they were snatched-up by the violent wind, fluttered and fell into that seething mass of water.
    We should have stayed together, I thought. And then:
    Why? We have never been together. But this was different. This was danger. It was Death staring us in the face. Surely a few notes were not worth parting for at such a time?
    Some people were getting into boats. I realized that my turn would not come for a long time . and when I saw the frail boats descending into that malignant sea, I was not sure that I wanted to trust myself to one of them.
    The ship gave a sudden shivering groan as though it could endure no more. We seemed to keel over and I was standing in water. Then I saw one of the boats turn over as it was lowered. I heard the shrieks of its occupants as the sea hungrily caught them and drew them down.
    I felt dazed and somewhat aloof from the scene. Death seemed almost certain. I was going to lose my life almost before it had begun. I started thinking of the past, which people say you do when you are
    drowning. But I was not drowning . yet. Here I was on this leaky frail vessel, facing the unprecedented fury of the elements, and I knew that at any moment I could be flung from the comparative safety of the deck into that grey sea in which no one could have a hope of survival. The noise was deafening; the shrieks and prayers of the people calling to God to save them from the fury of the sea . the sound of the raging tempest. the violent howling of the wind and the mountainous seas . they were like something out of Dante’s Inferno.
    There was nothing to be done. I suppose the first thought of people faced with death is to save themselves. Perhaps when one is young death seems so remote that one cannot take it seriously. It is something which happens to other people, old people at that; one cannot imagine a world without oneself; one feels oneself to be immortal. I knew that many this night would lie in a watery grave but I could not really believe that I should be one of them.
    I stood there . dazed . waiting . striving to catch a glimpse of my parents. I thought of Lucas Lorimer. Where was he? I wished I could see him. I thought fleetingly that he would probably still be calm and a little cynical. Would he talk of death as nonchalantly as he did of life?
    Then I saw the overturned boat. It was being tossed about in the water. It came close to the spot where I was standing. Then it had righted itself and was bobbing about below me.
    Someone had roughly caught my arm.
    “You’ll be washed overboard in a minute if you stay here.”
    I turned. It was the deck hand.
    “She’s finished. She’ll turn over … it’s certain.”
    His face was wet with spray. He was staring at the boat which the violent wind had brought close to the ship’s side. A giant wave brought it almost level with us.
    He shouted: “It’s a chance. Come on. Jump.”
    I was surprised to find that I obeyed. He had my arm still
     
    in a grip. It seemed unreal. I was sailing through the air and then plunging right down into that seething sea.
    We were beside the boat.
    “Grip!” he shouted above the tumult.
    Instinctively I obeyed. He was very close to me. It seemed minutes but it could only have been seconds before he was in the boat. I was still clinging to the sides. Then his hands were on me. He was hauling me in beside him.
    It was just in