"I know, dearie—sit still!"
"What is it?" Aileen gasped: and suddenly knew. They were gaining rapidly now, but the dinghy was settling down in the water. The leaks! the wonder was that it had floated so long. Now the water rippled almost level with its edge. For an instant Aileen lost her head in her agony of terror. She screamed, starting half up.
"Sit down!" 'Possum's voice, stern in its anxiety, brought her to her senses. She flung a backward glance. "Near down," she gasped; "I knew, when we gained so quick."
Garth's voice came again, and this time with a sob of fear. The dinghy was almost sinking. For another moment the skiff spun through the water, rounding a bend, and there, ahead, lay the open water of the lake. 'Possum shipped the oars with a sudden jerk.
"Try 'n' keep her straight"—she flung the words at Aileen. "There's one chance——"
Ahead, the dinghy seemed to stop. There was a slow, sickening swirl, and, even as 'Possum screamed to Garth to jump, the water closed over the little boat. There was a cry—a cry that choked suddenly. Then the skiff quivered and stopped as 'Possum dived into the stream.
The water lay blank and desolate before the woman who sat staring in the skiff—blank but for the widening ripples that spread across the pathway of the current. So it lay for a dragging moment that was years, and then 'Possum's head broke it, and, but farther away, Garth's upturned face. They disappeared again.
When she saw them once more, they were together—'Possum gripping the boy tightly, and keeping afloat with one hand. The skiff was drifting down towards them. Aileen grasped an oar and tried to bring it closer, loathing the helpless ignorance that made her efforts awkward. Close—closer, but still too far. She thrust the oar towards them, leaning over the side. It was too short.
The current whisked her away—still stretching vainly towards the two faces in the water, crying to them, calling to God. Then she flung herself into the water, striving, with desperate helpless strokes, against the racing tide.
