"Good God!" he muttered to himself, as he saw the struggle continued; "good God! he will sink and drown."
As he spoke, he jumped into his boat and pushed it off, for the purpose of stopping the descent of the body down the stream, and in a moment or two it came near to him. He muttered,—
"Come, come—he tries to swim; life is not gone yet—he will do now, if I can catch hold of him. Swimming with one's face under the stream doesn't say much for his skill, though it may account for the fact that he don't cry out."
As the drowning man neared, the ferryman held on by the boat-hook, and stooping down, he seized the drowning man by the hair of the head, and then paused.
After a time, he lifted him up, and placed him across the edge of the boat, and then, with some struggling of his own, he was rolled over into the boat.
"You are safe now," muttered the ferryman.
The stranger spoke not, but sat or leaned against the boat's head, sobbing and catching at his breath, and spitting off his stomach the water it might be presumed he had swallowed.
The ferryman put back to the shore, when he paused, and secured his boat, and then pulled the stranger out, saying,—
"Do you feel any better now?"
"Yes," said the stranger; "I feel I am living—thanks to you, my good friend; I owe you my life."