awful peril. The swift flood sweeps on and sucks under its prey with
fearful force. To resist it is impossible--to escape being dashed
against its stony bottom is almost as impossible.

Mercifully for Oliver, he did escape this latter peril, and, being cool
always in the presence of danger, he offered no resistance to the
stream, but struck out hard under the water for as long as his breath
would permit.

When at last, exhausted and unable to swim farther, he rose to the
surface, he was in calm deep water many yards below the weir. Help was
at hand, or he could never have reached the bank. As it was, when at
last friendly arms did drag him ashore, he was too exhausted even to
utter his brother's name.

Where was Stephen? and where was Wraysford?

Wraysford had been more fortunate even than Oliver in his first capsize.
He was swept over the weir, indeed, but into a side eddy which brought
him up violently against a projecting branch, to which he clung wildly.
Here he would have been safe, and even able to help himself to shore.
But at the moment when he began to draw himself up from the water on to
the branch, there was something--an arm cast wildly up--in the water
beside him. In an instant Wraysford quitted his hold and plunged once
more into the rapid. How, he knew not, but he just reached the hapless
boy. It was too late to recover the friendly branch. All he could do
was to cling to Stephen and trust to reaching calm water safely. Many a
bruise the two received in that terrible passage, but the elder boy
never once quitted his hold of the younger.

At last--it seemed an age--calm water was reached, providentially near
the bank. Still clinging to one another, they were pulled ashore,
bruised, stunned, but safe.

Thus ended this famous holiday cruise. The three boys kept their own
secret, and talked little about the adventure, even to one another.

In due time the holidays ended, and the Dominicans reassembled once more
in their venerable Alma Mater. Need I say there were three within those
walls who, whatever they were before, were now friends bound together by
a bond the closest of all--a bond which had stood the test of life and
death?

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

AN OLD FIRE RE-KINDLED.

Saint Dominic's reassembled after the holidays in an amiable frame of
mind.

The Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, as the Doctor had prophesied, had cooled
down considerably in spirit during the period, and now retur