"I can't hold out long; the rush will bear me down." The voice was fainter than before.
Horace drew Raphael's mantle from his shoulders; he tore from it strip after strip; he could think of no other means of saving the perishing man. With fingers which trembled with nervous haste, he proceeded to tie together these unmanageable substitutes for a rope. Tightly, he knotted them, and tried each knot; for the awful consequences, were a single one to give way, were too terrible to think of. His movements were quickened by the horrible dread that he would see Enrico, exhausted and despairing, whirled down to certain death at the very moment when deliverance appeared at hand.
"Haste, or I'm lost!" cried the voice from the fall.
Horace was engaged in fastening one end of his improvised rope round a tree which bent over the cataract. The stem was so slender that he almost feared lest its roots should give way with the strain which would be upon it, but there was no other tree sufficiently close to the edge to serve his purpose.
"Now!" exclaimed Horace, as he flung the thick knotted rope towards the spot where the indistinctly seen form of Enrico broke the long line of foam.
At that moment a cloud passed over the moon, which had till then been shining in untroubled brightness.
"Where is it? I can't find it!" cried Enrico, in a tone of anguish.
Horace's interest rose to agony. He had done all that he could do—he had strained every nerve—he had now nothing left but the means of prayer. Fervently he prayed for light—light on the fearful, the fatal darkness. Like a film the cloud rolled away; he looked down—almost fearing to look—Enrico was still clinging below.
"I see it, but I can't reach it!" shrieked the miserable man; the dark line of the rope lay on the foam just beyond his outstretched hand.
Horace was almost in despair; he had no power to throw it nearer; the current of the waters was gradually drawing the life-rope further away from their victim.