In an ordinary current such an adventure would have been of little moment, for the boys could swim. But in a torrent like this it was an awful peril. The swift flood sweeps on and sucks under its prey with fearful force. To resist it is impossible—to escape being dashed against its stony bottom is almost as impossible.
Mercifully for Oliver, he did escape this latter peril, and, being cool always in the presence of danger, he offered no resistance to the stream, but struck out hard under the water for as long as his breath would permit.
When at last, exhausted and unable to swim farther, he rose to the surface, he was in calm deep water many yards below the weir. Help was at hand, or he could never have reached the bank. As it was, when at last friendly arms did drag him ashore, he was too exhausted even to utter his brother’s name.
Where was Stephen? and where was Wraysford?
Wraysford had been more fortunate even than Oliver in his first capsize. He was swept over the weir, indeed, but into a side eddy which brought him up violently against a projecting branch, to which he clung wildly. Here he would have been safe, and even able to help himself to shore. But at the moment when he began to draw himself up from the water on to the branch, there was something—an arm cast wildly up—in the water beside him. In an instant Wraysford quitted his hold and plunged once more into the rapid. How, he knew not, but he just reached the hapless boy. It was too late to recover the friendly branch. All he could do was to cling to Stephen and trust to reaching calm water safely. Many a bruise the two received in that terrible passage, but the elder boy never once quitted his hold of the younger.
At last—it seemed an age—calm water was reached, providentially near the bank. Still clinging to one another, they were pulled ashore, bruised, stunned, but safe.
Thus ended this famous holiday cruise. The three boys kept their own secret, and talked little about the adventure, even to one another.
In due time the holidays ended, and the Dominicans reassembled once more in their venerable Alma Mater. Need I say there were three within those walls who, whatever they were before, were now friends bound together by a bond the closest of all—a bond which had stood the test of life and death?