bows and straining his eyes in one particular direction.

For answer the man yelled to his messmates to pull with all their might.

The oars dipped, but at the second stroke there was a crashing rustling
sound of twigs, followed by a sharp crackling and snapping, as they were
swept in amongst the pendant branches of some huge forest tree, one
bough striking Rodd across the shoulders and holding him as it were
fast, so that the boat was being dragged from beneath him.

Then there was more grinding of the gunwale of the boat amongst the
boughs, the water came swishing in over the side, and directly after the
frail vessel partly turned over, with her keel lying sideways to the
rushing tide.

Then more crackling and rustling amongst the boughs, mingled with
shouting from the boat's crew, and from out of the confusion, and
somewhere above him in the pitchy darkness and low-lying night mist,
came the voice of Joe Cross--

"Now then, all of you! Where away?"

"Here!"

"Here!"

"All right, mate!"

"Lend a hand, some one!"

"Are you all here?" cried Joe Cross again.

"Ay, ay, ay, ay!" came in chorus.

"But I don't hear the young guvnor."

There was silence.

"Where's Mr Rodd?"

A moment's pause, and then--

"Mr Rodd! Ahoy!"

"Here, Joe, here!" came in half-suffocated tones.

"Wheer, my lad?" cried the man excitedly.

"Here! Here! Help!"

"But where's yer _here_, lad? I can't see you.--Can any of you? Oh,
look alive, some on you! Get hold of the boy anywhere--arms or legs or
anything--and hold on like grim death."

There was a sharp rustling of leaves and twigs which pretty well drowned
Rodd's answer--

"I'm down here."

"Where's _down here_, my lad? Are you under the boat?"

"No, no. Hanging to a bough, with the water up to my chest, and
something's tugging at me to drag me away."

"Oh, a-mussy me!" groaned the sailor. "Why aren't it to-morrow morning
and sun up? Can't any of you see him?"

"No, no, no, no!" came back, almost as dismally as groans.

"Well, can't you feel him, then?"

"No."

"I am here, Joe--here!" panted the lad. "Higher up the river than you
are. A big branch swept me out of the boat."

"Ah, yes, we went under it," groaned Joe. "Well, lads, he must be the
other side of the tree. Here, where's that there boat? Can any of you
see it?"

"No; we are all on us in the tree?"

"Well, I don't suppose you are swimming," roared Cross savagely. "Do
something,