heavy rain, or even one of those deluging
thunder showers which are at certain times of the year of frequent and
momentous occurrence, are wont to roll down in a furious, raging flood,
and that with scant warning, if any; and now the bottom of this one is
covered with at least ten feet of foaming, swirling water, coming down
with a velocity and power against which the strongest of swimmers would
stand not the ghost of a chance.

High in mid-air, looking like the mere gossamer thread of a spider's web
spanning the abyss, is a rope of galvanised iron, and swung on this,
dependent on a couple of pulleys, is the "box." It is literally a box,
a low-sided, flat concern, seven feet long, and just wide enough for a
human being to sit in, and when it is remembered that occupants of this,
for it will carry two at a time, are under the strictest necessity of
keeping carefully in the centre, under pain of capsizal, and must also
lower their heads to avoid the rope, it follows that, to a nervous
person, the process of being swung out over a very abyss of boiling,
seething waters, and gradually hauled across to the other side, is an
ordeal which verges upon the terrific. And, as if to enhance the
effect, the spot chosen for this particular apparatus to be hung is the
highest point of the steep, well-nigh precipitous bank; the real reason
being, of course, that such point is the clearest from which to work it.

"I had better take the lady across first," suggests Roden to his other
travelling companion. The latter nods, and proceeds to fill a fresh
pipe with the utmost unconcern, an example followed by a brace of
stolid-faced Boer transport-riders, who stand watching the proceeding
with characteristic phlegm. Two grinning Kaffirs stand prepared to work
the rope.

But at sight of the rolling flood, whirling its load of tree-trunks and
driftwood right beneath her feet, the frightened woman utters a piteous
cry and draws back. She would rather wait for days, she protests, than
be swung in mid-air over that horrible river. What if anything were to
give way; what if the box or even the iron rope were to break, for
instance! "There isn't a chance of anything of the sort," urges her
self-constituted protector; "I've been over far shakier concerns than
this. Come now, jump in. We have only to sit opposite each other, and
talk, and they'll have us over in a twinkling. Only be careful and sit
well in the middle, and keep perfectly s