“Help—help—boat!”
Those were awful moments; and more than one turned hurriedly away. I could not, though, for my eyes were fixed on the swimmer—nay, struggler now, as at last, rapidly beating the water and crying wildly for aid, he slowly went down with his white form visible beneath the clear water, now agitated and forming concentric rings where he sank.
The cries from the bridge had attracted the notice of one of the Society’s men, and he was now rowing up fast; but it was plain to all that he must be too late, when from just by where I stood there was a slight movement and clambering; and then, like an arrow from a bow, with hands pointed above his head, down with a mighty rush right into the spray-splashing water, went a figure accompanied by a ringing cheer from those around.
Up rose the water, and then closed like a boiling cauldron above the gallant swimmer’s head. Then followed moments of intense excitement, as nothing but agitated water was visible till the daring one’s head rose above the surface for an instant, when he shook the water from his face, dived again, and in a few seconds rose to the surface, with the drowning boy clinging to him.
But now there was fresh help at hand, and in another instant the gallant young man and the boy were in the boat that came up; while with a sobbing sigh of relief I went home, thinking to myself that I would sooner have been that brave man than the greatest hero of yore.
Chapter Twenty One.
The Evils of a Wig.
Now it’s all very well to say that truth is strange—stranger than fiction; but the saying won’t wash, it isn’t fast colours, but partakes of the nature of those carried by certain Austrian regiments—it runs; for there is no rule without an exception, and no person in the full enjoyment of his mental faculties will pretend to say that truth was stranger than fiction in the case of Mr Smith’s wig, for the fiction—the wig—was, to all intents and purposes, stranger than the truth—the genuine head of hair.