to see her by. It was not easy walking in the
obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest
tree that suited my purpose.

I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the tree,
when the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken by the
distant sound of a voice.

The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high pitch; its accent
was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were these:

"Christ, have mercy on me!"

There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I looked out
on the bridge.

She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I could
cry out, before I could even breathe again freely, she leaped into the
river.

The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the surface,
floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran headlong down the
bank. She sank again, in the moment when I stopped to throw aside my
hat and coat and to kick off my shoes. I was a practiced swimmer. The
instant I was in the water my composure came back to me--I felt like
myself again.

The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly increased
the speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when she rose for
the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few inches below the
surface of the river. One more stroke, and my left arm was round her; I
had her face out of the water. She was insensible. I could hold her in
the right way to leave me master of all my movements; I could devote
myself, without flurry or fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to
the shore.

My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope,
burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current running toward
the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on one side, and I tried
it on the other, and gave it up. The one choice left was to let myself
drift with her down the stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took
a turn round a promontory of land, on which stood a little inn much
frequented by anglers in the season. As we approached the place, I made
another attempt (again an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last
chance now was to be heard by the people of the inn. I shouted at the
full pitch of my voice as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A
man put off in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank
again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by the river-side.

The landlady and her servant-girl