ad taken. Presently
she turned about; her eyes opened and she pressed her hands to her head.

"Don't say 'Where am I?'" said Harry, "because we don't know. How do
you feel?"

"I don't know," she answered, still gasping for breath. "What was it?
What did we do?"

I left them then, turning to survey the extent of our damage. There
was absolutely none; we were as intact as when we started. The
provisions and spears remained under their straps; my oar lay where I
had fallen on it. The raft appeared to be floating easily as before,
without a scratch.

The water about us was churned into foam, though we had already been
carried so far from the cataract that it was lost behind us in the
darkness; only its roar reached our ears. To this day I haven't the
faintest idea of its height; it may have been ten feet or two hundred.
Harry says a thousand.

We were moving slowly along on the surface of what appeared to be a
lake, still carried forward by the force of the falls behind us. For
my part, I found its roar bewildering and confusing, and I picked up my
oar and commenced to paddle away from it; at least, so I judged.

Harry's voice came from behind:

"In the name of goodness, where did you get that oar?"

I turned.

"Young man, a good sailor never loses an oar. How do you feel,
Desiree?"

"Like a drowned rat," she answered, but with a laugh in her voice.
"I'm faint and sick and wet, and my throat is ready to burst, but I
wouldn't have missed that for anything. It was glorious! I'd like to
do it again."

"Yes, you would," said Harry skeptically. "You're welcome, thank you.
But what I want to know is, where did that oar come from?"

I explained that I had taken the precaution to fall on it.

"Do you never lose your head?" asked Desiree.

"No, merely my heart."

"Oh, as for that," she retorted, with a lightness that still had a
sting, "my good friend, you never had any."

Whereupon I returned to my paddling in haste.

Soon I discovered that though, as I have said, we appeared to be in a
lake--for I could see no bank on either side--there was still a
current. We drifted slowly, but our movement was plainly perceptible,
and I rested on my oar.

Presently a wall loomed up ahead of us and I saw that the stream again
narrowed down as it entered the tunnel, much lower than the one above
the cataract. The current became swifter as we were carried toward its
mouth, and I called to Harry to get his spe