Читать книгу The Wireless Operator—With the U. S. Coast Guard онлайн

15 страница из 58

Presently an ocean liner passed down the Narrows, headed for the open sea. How majestically she rode the waves! Her rails were lined with people. Henry wondered where they were going, and when they would be coming back again. He watched the great ship until she began to grow small in the distance. He was lost in thought, his mind with the voyagers on the great vessel. There was not a soul about to disturb his meditations. No one was on the pier, and no ships lay in the docks alongside. How he wished he might take a journey abroad, like the passengers on that great liner, and see distant lands and strange peoples.

Unconsciously Henry had approached the very edge of the pier. He hardly realized that only a foot or two of solid planking lay between him and the heaving waters. His thoughts were entirely centred upon the vanishing steamer. He wanted to watch her until he could see her no longer. Her course turned her slightly toward the shore, behind some pier-sheds and shipping farther down-stream. Henry craned his neck as far as he could, to watch the disappearing vessel. Then he took one step forward, and, as he did so, his toe caught under a spike which was sticking up an inch or so in the flooring of the pier. He lost his balance, and, before he could recover himself, pitched head foremost over the end of the pier. Then, with no one near to aid him, with not a soul to hear his startled cry for help, he sank far down into the cold and heaving waters.