“Not yet!” Jack cried. And, attempting to run back down the embankment, he found himself on a steep and dangerous place over the culvert.
“Give up, give up, sonny!” said Sellick, working carefully down towards him from the top of the embankment. “Come! then we’ll go to the grocery and have another drink of milk, ’fore we take that little ride together. I guess we can find some better milk this time! Look out! you’ll fall!”
“I don’t care if I do!” exclaimed Jack, groping farther and farther down, as the constable ventured nearer. “Before I’ll let you take me—”
At that moment his foot appeared to slip; he seemed to make a feeble attempt to regain his hold, then, to avoid a dangerous fall, he threw himself clear of the masonry, and tumbled headlong into the water. It was the fall and the splash that drew forth the aforesaid exclamations from the spectators.
Sellick ran back to a safe place, and descended quickly to the edge of the pond, just in time to see Jack come up once, gasp, turn heavily in the water, and sink again. The jolly man was serious for once.
“Help!” he called. “I vum, the boy is drownding!”
There was a great rush to the spot; but, as is usually the case at such times, nobody seemed to know what to do. Some cried, “Bring a rope!” others, “Get a pole!” but neither pole nor rope was brought; nor would either have been of the least use, as the event proved.
Jack had fallen in deep water at a distance of several yards from any standing-place near the culvert. It was the intention to reach out something for him to lay hold of when he should rise in sight again. But, strange to say, good swimmer as he was, he did not reappear.
What had become of him we shall perhaps learn in the course of a chapter or two.