ory was rising, still with his arm
around her. In a moment her head was in the air, and she could breathe.
Now she felt that he was swimming, with one arm and both legs.
Instinctively she tried to help him, for she had learned to swim. They
went on a dozen strokes or more, with much labour, until they touched
something hard.

"My boat," said Dickory, in the lowest of whispers; "take hold of it."

Kate did so, and he moved from her. She knew that he was clambering into
the boat, although she could not see or hear him. Soon he took hold of
her under her arms, and he lifted with the strength of a young lion, yet
so slowly, so warily, that not a drop of water could be heard dripping
from her garments. And when she was drawn up high enough to help
herself, he pulled her in, still warily and slowly. Then he slipped to
the bow and cast off the rope with which the canoe had been anchored. It
was his only rope, but he could not risk the danger of pulling up the
bit of rock to which the other end of it was fastened. Then, with a
paddle, worked as silently as if it had been handled by an Indian, the
canoe moved away, farther and farther, into the darkness.

"Is all well with you?" said Dickory, thinking he might now safely
murmur a few words.

"All well," she murmured back, "except that this is the most
uncomfortable boat I ever sat in!"

"I expect you are on my orange basket," he said; "perhaps you can move
it a little."

Now he paddled more strongly, and then he stopped.

"Where shall I take you, Mistress Bonnet?" he asked, a little louder
than he had dared to speak before.

Kate heaved a sigh before she answered; she had been saying her prayers.

"I don't know, you brave Dickory," she answered, "but it seems to me
that you can't see to take me anywhere. Everything is just as black as
pitch, one way or another."

"But I know the river," he said, "with light or without it. I have gone
home on nights as black as this. Will you go to the town?"

"I would not know where to go to there," she answered, "and in such a
plight."

"Then to your home," said he. "But that will be a long row, and you must
be very cold."

She shuddered, but not with cold. If her father had been at home it
would have been all right, but her step-mother would be there, and that
would not be all right. She would not know what to say to her.

"Oh, Dickory," she said, "I don't know where to go."

"I know where you can go," he said, beginning to