No sooner said than done! Not at all; things don't happen so, at least, when anything worth doing has to be done. It took me a toilsome journey to the boat, and I found it half-full of flood-water. This I emptied by hauling the boat, as the river rose, on to a shelving rock. Then I waited for it to float free, having meanwhile got hold of a long, fir sapling, which, pruned of its branches, I thought to use as a guiding pole, helm or oar, as the rushing of many waters might demand.
Thus equipped, out I sailed on that uncharted ocean with never a thought in my head whether I should again see dry land or riot. The darkness had deepened, but I could still distinguish the hillock and the man thereon, now up to his waist in the waters, and for those fading signs I steered. Quickly I was in the flood race, but I kept my head, otherwise I should not have heard the voice come to me again in what seemed to be the words, "Hurry! For God's sake, hurry!"
Down-stream I rushed, here shoving from disaster against a tree trunk, there avoiding a smash with something else. How it was all done I have not the remotest notion—perhaps it was mere luck—but when I came level with the hillock I was only three feet clear of it on the near side.
"Jump," I roared, and the man with outstretched arms jumped strongly, and I felt a pull which almost upset me, for I had been standing in the boat. Two hands had caught the gunwale, and the pull of dead weight swung the heavy, clumsy craft round on a new course without, however, upsetting it. This took us into shallower waters, and presently the suction of the main surge got fainter and we were aground on the moorland edge.
I had not, in the dark, seen the face of my companion at all, and, trailing beside the boat, he had no opportunity for making himself known. I stepped out, knee-deep, to find him also a-foot, and seeking the land.
"Come on," I said, "whoever you may be."
"Yes," he answered; "whoever you may be, you are a friend in need."
I recognized his voice, and exclaimed, nay, shouted in my surprise,
"Jock Farquharson!"
"Yes, Ian Gordon," he said in turn. "Would you rather not have saved me?"
"God's will be done," said I.