“That’s a new spinner, and the best cast I’ve got,” she said. “I can’t afford to waste tackle.” She turned from him and looked doubtfully at the water.
“Is it deep?” he asked.
“I’m not sure; it might be better to swim than to wade. It might be snaggy—you never can tell, in these pools, what snags may have floated down and sunk. Oh, I’ll chance wading: if it gets too deep I’ll have to go home and get bathing-togs and swim.”
“I’ll swim over for you,” he offered eagerly.
“It’s all right, thanks,” was Robin’s stiff reply. Evidently she had not forgotten their encounter after lunch: she would not accept any favour from him. She waded out into the pool, while Barry watched her uneasily. The water, swift and brown, seemed to him altogether too deep for wading—especially for a girl.
“I wish you’d let me swim,” he called. “Here, I’ll get my boots off: it doesn’t matter if I get wet.”
He sat down on the bank and unlaced his boots hurriedly, heedless of the fact that Robin had not answered. The socks followed the boots, and he stood barefooted on the bank, again begging her to come back. But Robin’s “red-haired streak,” as her schoolfellows had called it, was uppermost, although she began to realize that the water was too deep for wading. Had she been alone, she would have turned back to the bank: but not before the supercilious youngster who had called good old Danny a lout. “I’ll give it a yard more,” she muttered to herself. “It may not get any deeper than it is now.”
A stone turned under her foot. She lurched forward uncertainly in the knee-deep water, saving herself from falling only by taking a long step. Her foot went down—down: there was no bottom anywhere, and no drawing back. She gave a little choked cry as the water closed over her red head. It was a cry that expressed exasperation more than fear.
She kicked downwards as she sank, to send herself up to the surface, and something closed like a vice upon her foot. Something that held and clung, tantalizing her with a swing that felt as though it were yielding, but never releasing its grip. She knew what it was, as she struggled in sick fear: knew how the old, water-logged gum boughs lie along the bottom, spikes driven into the mud holding the crooked, forked limbs that swing and sway with the current, never released until they rot away and mingle with the stream. She knew how little time she had to fight. Already her lungs seemed bursting with the effort of holding her breath: already her limbs were heavy and helpless. And the grip was no less tight.
On the bank, Barry had uttered an exclamation of dismay as Robin disappeared. He was not alarmed, for she had spoken easily of swimming: still, he knew that no girl likes an involuntary ducking. He waited for the red head to bob up again, prepared to shout sympathetically to her. Fifteen seconds went by: thirty: and suddenly the boy found his heart beginning to pump like an engine.