“He must be dead ever so long ago,” I added, repeating what I had heard.
“He hasn’t been in the water ten minutes,” said the school-master, laughing, “Jack! Jack! you’re not half ready for travelling yet. You must learn not to lose your head and your heart and your wits and your sense of time in this fashion, if you mean to be any good at a pinch to yourself or your neighbours. Has the rope come?”
“No, sir.”
“Those poles?” said the school-master, getting up.
“They’re here!” I shouted, as a young forest of poles came towards us, so willing had been the owners
of the jack-knives. The thickest had been cut by the heavy man, and Mr. Wood took it first.
“Thank you, friend,” he said. The man didn’t speak, and he turned his back as usual, but he gave a sideways surly nod before he turned. The school-master chose a second pole, and then pushed both before him right out on to the ice, in such a way that with the points touching each other they formed a sort of huge A, the thicker ends being the nearer to the bank.
“Now, Jack,” said he, “pay attention; and no more blubbering. There’s always plenty of time for giving way afterwards.”
As he spoke he scrambled on to the poles, and began to work himself and them over the ice, wriggling in a kind of snake fashion in the direction of the hole. We watched him breathlessly, but within ten yards of the hole he stopped. He evidently dared not go on; and the same thought seized all of us—“Can he get back?” Spreading his legs and arms he now lay flat upon the poles, peering towards the hole as if to try if he could see anything of the drowning man. It was only for an instant, then he rolled over on to the rotten ice, smashed through, and sank more suddenly than the skater had done.
The mill-girl jumped up with a wild cry and rushed to the water, but John Binder pulled her back