Burr Junior

by George Manville Fenn

The poor fellow seemed paralysed, save that I could feel his hands grasping me with a clutch that did not relax for a moment, as I lay there on my chest, thinking what I must do. It was evident that I should get no help from him: for the shock of the accident, and his discovery that he was fast bound and helpless, had completely unnerved him, and it was plain to me that before long his desperate clutch would relax, and, when I could hold him no longer, he would sink back and drown before my eyes.

I looked despairingly round, but only to see deep water, and the bank so near and yet so far, for it was out of reach.

At last my mind was made up. I would get my knees on the penstock again, and then by main force drag him out, at all events into a sitting position, where I could hold him against the post while he recovered sufficiently to walk to the shore.

I waited a few moments, and then began, but to my horror found that my feet glided over the slimy, rotten woodwork of the piles beneath the water, and that I could get no hold anywhere. If I could have had my hands free for a few moments, it would have been easy enough, but I dared not let go of him, and, after a brief and weakening struggle, I gave up, and hung over panting, with for the only result the feeling that the water was now farther up my legs than before.

I soon got my breath again, and made a fresh effort, but with a worse result, and this was repeated till a chilly sensation of dread ran through me, and I felt half stunned at the horror of my position.

Then I recovered a little. “Mercer,” I said, “do you feel rested now?”

He did not speak, only looked at me in a curious, half vacant way, and I shivered, for this was, I felt sure, the first step toward his losing consciousness and loosening his hold.

“I say,” I cried, “don’t give up like that. You’ve got to climb up on to these boards. I’m going to help you, but I can’t unless you help me too.”

There was no reply, only the same fixed stare in his dilated eyes, and in my horror I looked wildly round at the place I had thought so beautiful, but which was now all terrible to me, and felt how utterly we were away from help.

I began again, twining my legs now about the nearest post, and this enabled me to hold on, but I could get up no farther. I tried, though, to drag Mercer on to the woodwork, but my position crippled me, and I should have required double the muscular power I possessed.