Ah, her feet touched the bottom! She would do it after all! A feeble shout of triumph burst from her lips and was echoed by the boy, who had plainly pluck of a sort, although he was so desperately afraid of water. Even as the shout left her lips Pam was down again, and this time she seemed to have no strength to pull herself up. She felt it was all over, and there was even a pang because she would never know why that small boy had been so rude to her. Then something struck her with a force that hurt. She was dragged up and tugged here and pulled there. Someone was working hard to get her ashore, and panting heavily in the process. But she could not help. She could not do anything but struggle to get her breath, and to marvel that she was still alive. At first she could not even open her eyes, and she seemed to be slipping, slipping, while a great black void waited to swallow her up, when she heard a voice in her ears calling to her, and she strove with all her might to answer.
“Jack, Jack, I did not know that you were here!” Her voice was so feeble that she was even surprised herself to find how little noise she could make.
“It is lucky that I was coming along the creek when you fell!” he answered. His tone was jerky, and opening her eyes again, Pam felt half-frightened by the look on his face.
“Was it such a near thing? Poor old Jack!” Pam felt a leaping joy at heart to think he cared so much. She had been so home-sick all the winter that it seemed worth while being brought to such a pitch as this, just to have surprised that look of adoring affection in her brother’s eyes. Then she remembered the boy who was the cause of all the trouble, and she cried out sharply: “Where is the boy? Surely he is not drowned, I tried so hard to save him!” The thought that she might have tried in vain was too much for Pam. She saw the black void open close to her once more; she was slipping, slipping again, and then she heard a burst of noisy crying, and a shrill voice calling:
“Can’t you do nothing to save her? She is dying—I say she is dying, and I never told her. Boo-oo-oo!”
It seemed to Pam that she had slipped to the very verge of the void. The slightest further movement, and she would be gone beyond recall; but she hung poised as it were while Jack said sharply:
“Help me to bring her round, can’t you? It is of no good to howl like that.”
“I might have told her, though, and now it is too late!” wailed the boy, and the sharp curiosity in the heart of Pam drew her back again from the edge of the void.