“Oh, blame me, of course. ‘The woman tempted me and I did eat.’”
“No, no. Apples are not the only forbidden fruit. May I vary an unworthy defense? The woman came with me and I didn’t care.”
“But I do care. Please hurry. Mrs. Devar will be real mad, and I shan’t have a word to say for myself.”
Medenham bent to it, and the outrigger traveled downstream at a rare pace. Cynthia steered with fair accuracy by the track they had followed against the current, but the oarsman glanced over his shoulder occasionally, and advised her as to the probable trend of the channel.
“Keep a bit wide here,” he said when they were approaching a sharp bend. “I believe we almost touched ground in midstream as we came up.”
She obeyed, and a wide expanse of low-lying land opened before her eyes.
“I don’t see the lights of the hotel yet,” she said, with a note of anxiety.
“You are not making enough allowance for the way in which this river turns and twists. There are sections in which you box the compass during the course of a short——”
A sharp tearing noise in the bottom of the boat amidships was followed by an inrush of water. Medenham sprang upright, leaped overboard, and caught the port outrigger with his left hand. He was then immersed to the waist, but he flung his right arm around Cynthia and lifted her clear of the sinking craft.