there holding on while life and sense seemed to return. Something
black and awful retreated. Then the rush and roar of the rapids was
again about him. He saw that he had drifted into a back eddy behind
the ledge of rock, and had whirled slowly round and round with a
miscellaneous collection of driftwood.

Lane steadied himself on the slippery ledge and got to his feet. The
boat was half full of water, out of which Swarm's ghastly face
protruded. By dint of great effort Lane pulled it sideways on the
ledge, and turned most of the water out.

Swann lay limp and sodden. But for his eyes he would have appeared
dead, and they shone with a conscious light of terror, of passionate
appeal and hope, the look with which a man prayed for his life.
Presently his lips moved imperceptibly. "Save me! for God's sake, save
me!"

Shuddering emotion that had the shock of electricity shook Lane. In
his ears again rang the sullen, hollow, reverberating boom of the
flood. Here was the man who had done most to harm him, begging to be
saved. Swann, poor wretch, was afraid to die; he feared the unknown;
he had a terror of that seething turmoil of waters; he could not face
the end of that cold ride. Why?

"Fool!" Lane cried, glaring wildly about him. Was it another dream?
Unreality swayed him again. He heard the roar, he saw the splitting
white-crested waves, the clouds of yellow vapor. He beat his numb legs
and shook himself like a savage dog. Then he made a discovery--in some
way he could not account for, the oars had remained in the boat. They
had been loose in their oar-locks.

Questions formed in Lane's mind, questions that seemed put by a
dawning significance. Why had he heard the cry for help? Why had he
found the boat? Why had the drowning man proved to be one of two men
on earth he hated, one of the two men whom he wanted to kill? Why had
he drifted into the rapids? Why had he come safely through a vortex of
death? Why had Swann's lips formed that prayer? Why had the oars
remained in the boat?

Far below over the choppy sea of waves he saw a bridge. It was his old
familiar resting place. Through the white enveloping glow he seemed to
see himself standing on that bridge. Then came to him a strange
revelation. Yesterday he had stood on that bridge, after seeing Blair
for the last time. He had stood there while he lived through an hour
of the keenest anguish that had come to him; and in that agony he had
watched the plunging rive