Bob rubbed his eyes. For a moment he thought it was all a dream and that this was but a phase of the explosion. Then as the face before him became more plain through a mist that seemed to fill his eyes, Bob gasped:
"Schnitz! If it isn't Franz Schnitzel!"
The long-sought, missing Brother had been found, and now the two Khaki Boys had strangely met to be companions in misery.
[CHAPTER XIX]
IN SWIRLING WATERS
False-hearted and desperate as had been the two men who struck down and rendered Roger and Jimmy senseless, their last inhuman act—the tossing of the unconscious Khaki Boys over the cliff—defeated their intentions. For as the Brothers fell into the deep water, the shock and contact of it brought back their senses.
Roger and Jimmy splashed into the water at the same time, and at first they sank deep into the swirling depths of the river, which ran at the foot of the cliff, dotted here and there on its surface with black rocks.
The blows that they had received on their heads had not, fortunately, been sufficiently hard to make them unconscious for more than a few minutes. It was as if a pugilist had received a "knockout" of a little more than the usual severity.
The shock and chill of the water brought back the senses of the two lads, and their first, natural instinct, in common with that of every swimmer, was to hold their breath when they felt their heads submerged.
And then the boys came to the surface and struck out. Again this was almost instinct. They were both good swimmers, and among the feats they had practised at various times in summer pleasure camps had been to swim across a lake fully clothed. This exploit stood the lads in good stead now, though the garments they wore and the accoutrements they had to carry very heavily handicapped them.