‘Now,’ said he, ‘you see these two channels—choose one.’
‘I’ll choose the nearest, to save time,’ said Nance.
‘Well, that shall be for action,’ returned Mr. Archer. ‘And since I wish to have the odds against me, not only the other channel but yon stagnant water in the midst shall be for lying still. You see this?’ he continued, pulling up a withered rush. ‘I break it in three. I shall put each separately at the top of the upper fall, and according as they go by your way or by the other I shall guide my life.’
‘This is very silly,’ said Nance, with a movement of her shoulders.
‘I do not think it so,’ said Mr. Archer.
‘And then,’ she resumed, ‘if you are to try your fortune, why not evenly?’
‘Nay,’ returned Mr. Archer with a smile, ‘no man can put complete reliance in blind fate; he must still cog the dice.’
By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall, and, bidding her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the middle of the intake. The rusty fragment was sucked at once over the fall, came up again far on the right hand, leaned ever more and more in the same direction, and disappeared under the hanging grasses on the castle side.
‘One,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘one for standing still.’
But the next launch had a different fate, and after hanging for a while about the edge of the stagnant water, steadily approached the bleaching-green and danced down the rapid under Nance’s eyes.