In a few seconds Richard was down, knee-deep in water, holding on with his left hand to the reedy growth of the bank and reaching out to snatch at the sheep.
Vain attempt.
The dead animal did not come within five yards, but, after curving in, literally shot out again towards the middle of the river and was borne down, the boy uttering a despairing wail as he saw his help fade away.
At the same moment Richard Frayne felt the mud giving beneath his feet, and he had hard work to struggle out on to firm land. And then there was another despairing cry for help, so faint and yet so penetrating to the cowardly fugitive’s heart that he turned, forgot everything but the fact that a brother was dying before his eyes, and took one brave plunge into the swollen river, to pass under into the thunderous darkness, feeling as if he had suddenly been grasped by a giant who was bearing him down.
Chapter Eleven.
A Good Servant and Bad Master.
It was a good thirty yards from where Richard Frayne dived in, and when a strange bewildering sense of suffocation was beginning to make itself his master. He had tried again and again to rise, but the water pressed him down and forced him to the bottom. At last, with one desperate kick, he drove himself upward and saw the daylight once again as he struck out vigorously, following the natural instinct to reach the bank.