“Oh, my God, how terrible!” he cried, and the Catholic crossed himself again. “God rest her soul!” he muttered, then eagerly: “We can do no more. They are all dead. Let us try to save ourselves. We shall suffocate if we remain in here five minutes longer. See the child!”
Little Sweetheart had suddenly succumbed to the heat and smoke, and fallen senseless.
Norman de Vere caught her up in his arms with a cry very like despair.
“Now don’t give way!” cried George Hinton, the drummer, eagerly. “What do you propose to do?”
“Can you swim?”
“Like a fish.”
“So can I. We must knock out that window there. The water will pour into the car, but we must climb through the opening and commit ourselves to the mercy of the river.”
The hour of deadly peril under the gloomy night sky on the wild, swirling river, battling fiercely with the elements in the effort to reach the lights that glimmered on shore, would the two nearly exhausted men ever forget it?
Norman de Vere’s efforts were greatly hampered by the little unconscious burden in his arms, but he would not listen to the shouts of the other.