Jeanne shuddered.
"Let us hurry," she said. "I'm—I'm afraid of THAT!"
Philip carried the canoe down to the river, and Jeanne followed with the bearskins. The current was soft and sluggish, with tiny maelstroms gurgling up here and there, like air-bubbles in boiling syrup. He only half launched the canoe, and Jeanne remained while he went for another load. The dip, kept green by the water of a spring, was a pistol-shot from the river. Philip looked back from the crest and saw Jeanne leaning over the canoe. Then he descended into the meadow, whistling. He had reached the packs when to his ears there seemed to come a sound that rose faintly above the roar of the water in the chasm. He straightened himself and listened.
"Philip! Philip!"
The cry came twice—his own name, piercing, agonizing, rising above the thunder of the floods. He heard no more, but raced up the slope of the dip. From the crest he stared down to where Jeanne had been. She was gone. The canoe was gone. A terrible fear swept upon him, and for an instant he turned faint. Jeanne's cry came to him again.
"Philip! Philip!"
Like a madman he dashed up the rocky trail to the chasm, calling to Jeanne, shrieking to her, telling her that he was coming. He reached the edge of the precipice and looked down. Below him was the canoe and Jeanne. She was fighting futilely against the resistless flood; he saw her paddle wrenched suddenly from her hands, and as it went swirling beyond her reach she cried out his name again. Philip shouted, and the girl's white face was turned up to him. Fifty yards ahead of her were the first of the rocks. In another minute, even less, Jeanne would be dashed to pieces before his eyes. Thoughts, swifter than light, flashed through his mind. He could do nothing for her, for it seemed impossible that any living creature could exist amid the maelstroms and rocks ahead. And yet she was calling to him. She was reaching up her arms to him. She had faith in him, even in the face of death.
"Philip! Philip!"
There was no M'SIEUR to that cry now, only a moaning, sobbing prayer filled with his name.
"I'm coming, Jeanne!" he shouted. "I'm coming! Hold fast to the canoe!"