“I shall be drowned! I can’t swim!” he murmured, with white lips, “I would sure go in likewise.”
Neither he nor Clare saw in the first moment of shocked excitement that somebody else had been quicker and braver than they.
“I have her!” said John Feversham’s voice, just a little less calm than usual. “I think I can keep her head above water till help cometh. Jack Enville, fetch a rope or a plank—quick!”
They saw then that Feversham was lying on his face on the ice, and holding firmly to Blanche by her fair hair, thus bringing her face above the water.
“O Jack, Jack!” cried Clare in an agony. “Where is a rope or plank?”
Even in that moment, Jack was pre-eminently a gentleman—in his own sense of the term.
“How should I know? I am no serving-man.”
Clare dashed off towards the house without another word. She met Sir Thomas at the garden gate, hastening out to ascertain the meaning of the screams which had been heard.
“Father!—a rope—a plank!” she panted breathlessly. “Oh, help! Blanche is drowning!”
Before Clare’s sentence was gasped out, Sim and Dick ran past, the one with a plank, the other with a coil of rope, sent by Abel to the rescue. Sir Thomas followed them at his utmost speed.