But Kenneth was active as a monkey; and, failing in his first attempt to grasp something to support him, he made a second leap and caught at a hazel bough which grew out horizontally above his head.
This time he was successful, and, as the sturdy bough bent and swayed, the lad hung right over the rushing water.
“Chump! Swing and chump, Maister Ken!” cried Scoodrach; and then he was silent, and sat staring wildly, for he realised that he could not help his young master—that there would not be time.
Kenneth was swinging to and fro, the bough dipping and rising and dipping, so low that the water almost touched his feet. As he hung he tried to get a better hold, and made a struggle to go hand over hand to the place where the bough joined the mossy roots.
But it was all in vain. Before he could get his loosened hand past a secondary branch, the rotten root broke away from its insecure hold in the gully wall, and one moment the two spectators saw Kenneth hanging there, his form shown up by the light behind; the next, they saw branch and its holder descend quickly into the glassy water, which was momentarily disturbed by a few leafy twigs standing above its surface, then a hand appeared, then again with half the arm, making a clutch at vacancy, and then there was nothing but the water gliding onward to the opening through which it leaped down into the basin on the top of the spreading rock.
Chapter Twenty.
Rival Doctors.
For a few moments Scoodrach was as if frozen. He sat gazing at the rushing water, and then he sprang up and dashed past Max, shouting,—