n while their tutor lay under a tree
reading a book. One warm afternoon a piercing cry awoke the tutor who was
dozing and the sound of splashing caused by something falling into the
water made him jump to his feet abruptly. The younger of the children,
eight years of age, was shouting, as he stood beside the reservoir, the
surface of which was stirred and eddying at the spot where the older boy
had fallen in as he ran along the stone coping.

Distracted, without waiting or stopping to think what was best to do, the
tutor jumped into the black water and did not rise again, having struck
his head at the bottom of the cistern.

At the same moment the young boy who had risen to the surface was waving
his stretched-out arms toward his brother. The little fellow on land lay
down full length, while the other tried to swim, to approach the wall,
and presently the four little hands clasped each other, tightened in each
other's grasp, contracted as though they were fastened together. They
both felt the intense joy of an escape from death, a shudder at the
danger past.

The older boy tried to climb up to the edge, but could not manage it, as
the wall was perpendicular, and his brother, who was too weak, was
sliding slowly towards the hole.

Then they remained motionless, filled anew with terror. And they waited.

The little fellow squeezed his brother's hands with all his might and
wept from nervousness as he repeated: "I cannot drag you out, I cannot
drag you out." And all at once he began to shout, "Help! Help!" But his
light voice scarcely penetrated beyond the dome of foliage above their
heads.

They remained thus a long time, hours and hours, facing each other, these
two children, with one thought, one anguish of heart and the horrible
dread that one of them, exhausted, might let go the hands of the other.
And they kept on calling, but all in vain.

At length the older boy, who was shivering with cold, said to the little
one: "I cannot hold out any longer. I am going to fall. Good-by, little
brother." And the other, gasping, replied: "Not yet, not yet, wait."

Evening came on, the still evening with its stars mirrored in the water.
The older lad, his endurance giving out, said: "Let go my hand, I am
going to give you my watch." He had received it as a present a few days
before, and ever since it had been his chief amusement. He was able to
get hold of it, and held it out to the little fellow who was sobbing and
who l