ARISTIDE DESSALINES
"Catch my shoulder!" he gasped. Virginia obeyed and pushed the hair from her eyes with her free hand. Giles, cool and resourceful in moments of active danger, saw that it was futile to waste his strength in an effort to swim clear of the obstruction; he saved it all for the struggle ahead. He looked at Virginia, and she smiled at him encouragingly; a pale, wet, and somewhat frightened smile, but full of pluck and confidence.
Then they struck. At the first shock Giles was almost sucked under the weir by the weight of water, and, planting his foot on the edge of a broken plank, struggled to hold his head above the surface. The strain was terrific; and, even while afraid to shift his position, he realized that he could not maintain it long. He knew, of course, that if he could manage to get under the weir his danger would be over, as the current would then float his body from, instead of against, the obstruction, and so enable him to get upon the upper beam and lift Virginia up after him. But the current had swept the girl's skirts between the open spaces of the planks in such a way as to hold her fast, and Giles was afraid to ease his hold for an instant, lest she be drawn down and entangled under the surface.
He groped below with his free foot, but although the rotten structure was full of crevices he could find none large enough to let him through, and he knew that should he try and fail the weight of the water would hold him jammed against the stakes.
As Giles realized the fatal helplessness of their position there swept over him something of the old Berserker madness, transmitted to him through a strain of viking blood; a mighty rage and refusal to accept his doom.
25
