"We will go back," he said, and these were the only words he spoke
until they reached their canoe again.

The Indian cooked a meal, of which Ainley partook with but little care
for what he was eating, his eyes fixed on the ochre-coloured water as
it swept by, his face the index of unfathomable thoughts. After the
meal they began to track their canoe upstream, until they reached water
where it would be possible to paddle, one of them towing with a line,
and the other working hard with the paddle to keep the canoe's nose
from the bank. A little way before they reached the limestone ramparts
through which they had swept at such speed a few hours before, the
Indian, who was at the towline, stopped and indicated that they must
make a portage over the gorge, since the configuration of the cliffs
made it impossible to tow the canoe through. In this task, a very hard
one, necessitating two journeys, one with the canoe and one with the
stores, they were occupied the remainder of the day, and when they
pitched camp again and had eaten the evening meal, the Indian promptly
fell asleep.

But there was no sleep for Gerald Ainley. He sat there staring at the
water rushing by, reflecting the crimson flare of the Northern night.
And it was not crimson that he saw it, but ochre-coloured as he had
seen it earlier in the day, hurrying towards the rapids below, and to
that ninety-foot leap into the gorge. And all the time, in vision, he
saw a canoe swept on the brown flood, a canoe in which crouched a
chestnut-haired girl, her grey eyes wide with fear; her hands
helplessly clasped, as she stared ahead, whilst the canoe danced and
leaped in the quickening waters hurrying towards the ramparts below,
which for aught she knew might well be the gates of death.

Sometimes the vision changed, and he saw the canoe in the rapids below
the ramparts, and waited in agony for it to strike one of the ugly
teeth of rock. Again and again it seemed that it must, but always the
current swept it clear, and it moved on at an increasing pace, swept in
that quick mill-race immediately above the falls. On the very edge he
saw it pause for a brief fraction of time and then the water flung it
and the white-faced girl into the depths beneath, and he saw them
falling, falling through the clouds of spray, the girl's dying cry
ringing through the thunder of the waters. He cried out in sudden
agony.

"My God! No!"

Then at the sound of his own cry, the vision l