My solitary journey was altogether an agreeable one. The bright waters of the Yarra-Yarra flowed by my side, while the gentle breeze, as it came softly sighing through the peppermint-trees, fanned my brow.
After advancing, as I supposed, a distance of about four miles—hearing only the cries of the screaming cockatoo, and the horribly human voice of the laughing jackass—I was suddenly and agreeably surprised by the barking of a dog. The animal could not be far off; and it was also in the direction I was going—up the river.
“The station cannot be distant?” thought I; and eager to catch a glimpse of it, I hastened forward. I had scarce made a step further, when I was startled by a piercing scream. It was a human voice—the voice of a woman. She who gave utterance to it must be near the spot—concealed by some wattle-bushes on the bank of the river?
I rushed forward; and glided through the bushes into the open ground beyond. I perceived a young woman just on the point of leaping into the river!
My abrupt appearance seemed to cause a change in her design. Suddenly turning towards me, she pointed to the water, at the same time exclaiming, “Save her! O, save her!”
Looking in the direction thus indicated, I saw something like a child—a little girl—struggling on the surface of the water. Partly supported by the drapery of her dress, she was drifting down with the current. The next instant I was in the water, with the child in my arms.
The bank of the river, for some distance below, was too high and steep for me to climb out again. After making two or three ineffectual attempts, I gave it up; and, supporting myself and the child by a swimming stroke, I permitted the current to carry us down, until I had reached a place where it was possible to scramble ashore.
The young girl upon the bank had done all she could to assist me, while I was endeavouring to climb out; but, fearing, from the state of excitement in which she appeared to be, that she would herself tumble in, I had commanded her to desist.
On my relinquishing the attempt to ascend the steep bank, she appeared to think that I had done so in despair; and that both the child and I were irrecoverably lost.
Her screams recommenced, while her movements betokened something like a determination to join company with us in the water. This, I believe, she would have done, had I not at that instant reached a place, where the bank shelved down to the surface, and where I at length succeeded in getting my feet upon dry land. In another moment I had placed the child in her arms.