Again the beat of rushing water. Scarcely seated where he had edged, Mr. Puddlebox was dragged away, clung, and was left upon the ledge's last extremity. As glad and radiant as ever it had been, the old jolly beam came to his face, to his mouth the old jolly words. "Swim! Why, boy, I'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied. Curse me, I'd never go if I couldn't. Swim! Why, curse me, I will swim you or any man, and I challenge any to the devil to best me at it. Wedge back, boy. Wedge back."
He turned away his jolly face, and to the waiting water turned a face drawn and horrible in fear.
Water that takes your breath!
He swung himself forward on his hands and dropped. He drowned instantly.
* * * * * * * *
There had been no pretence of swimming. There seemed to be no struggle. In one moment he had been balancing between his hands in seated posture on the ledge. In the next down and swallowed up and gone.
Eyes that looked to see him rise and swim stared, stared where he was gone and whence he came not: then saw his body rise—all lumped up, the back of its shoulders, not its head. Then watched it, all lumped up, slightly below the surface, bobbed tossing round the cliff within the inlet: out of sight in the further corner: now bumping along the further wall: now submerged and out of view. Now washed against the pulpit rock: now a long space bumping about it: now drawn beyond it: gone.