Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah

by George Manville Fenn

I tried to get rid of the fancy, but it would not go, and one effect of that thought was to make me swim more quickly than I should have done, or, as I should express it, use my limbs more rapidly than I ought, so that I was quickly growing tired, and at last so utterly worn out that a cold chill came over me. I looked despairingly to right and left at the beautiful tree-hung river-side, and then forward to where the boy had just reached the boat, and saw him climb in, the sun shining upon his wet back.

“Hi! Boy!” I shouted, “take the oars, and row.”

I might as well have held my tongue, for he could not understand a word; and as I shouted again and again I looked at him despairingly, for he was sitting on the thwart laughing, with the boat gliding downstream faster than I seemed to be able to swim, while I knew that I should never be able to overtake it, and that I was getting deeper in the water.

“Oh, if I could only make him understand!—if I could only make him understand!” I kept thinking, as I shouted again hoarsely; and this time he did seem to comprehend that something was wrong, for I saw him jump up and begin making signs to me. Then he shouted something, and I saw that he was about to jump in again as if to come to me.

But he stopped, and took up one of the oars, to begin rowing, but of course only to send the boat round. Then, as if puzzled, he put the oar over the other side, and rowed hard like that, to send the boat’s head in the other direction, repeating this again and again, and now standing up to shout to me.

I could not shout in return, only stare at him wildly, as he kept on making ineffective efforts to row to me, till all seemed to be over; the bright water and the beautiful green banks began to grow misty; and I knew that though I might keep struggling on for a few minutes, I should never reach the boat, and that he would never be able to row it to me.

I did not feel in much trouble nor get in any great alarm, for I suppose the severe exertion dulled everything, and robbed my sufferings of their poignancy as I still swam on more and more slowly, with my starting eyes fixed upon the boat still many yards away from me, and growing more and more dim as the water began to bubble about my lips.

All at once in front of me I saw the boy’s black figure rise up in the boat like a shadow. Then there was a splash and the water flashed up, and I knew he must be swimming toward me to help me; but I could not see that he had taken the rope in his teeth, after finding himself unable to row in my direction, and had essayed to swim to me and tug the boat in his wake.

This in so swift a stream was impossible, but his brave act saved my life, for he was able to hold his own by swimming hard till the current bore me down to him just as I was sinking; and my next recollection is of feeling myself clutched and my hand being raised to the edge of the boat, while one arm was about my waist.

The feeling of comparative security brought back my fleeting senses, and I made a convulsive clutch with the other hand at the gunwale; while the next thing I remember is feeling myself helped over the side by the boy, who had climbed in, and lying in the bottom with the sun beating down upon me—sick almost to death.