. "I believe we almost touched ground in midstream as we came up."

She obeyed, and a wide expanse of low-lying land opened before her
eyes.

"I don't see the lights of the hotel yet," she said, with a note of
anxiety.

"You are not making enough allowance for the way in which this river
turns and twists. There are sections in which you box the compass
during the course of a short----"

A sharp tearing noise in the bottom of the boat amidships was followed
by an inrush of water. Medenham sprang upright, leaped overboard, and
caught the port outrigger with his left hand. He was then immersed to
the waist, but he flung his right arm around Cynthia and lifted her
clear of the sinking craft.

"Sit on my shoulder. Steady yourself with your hands on my head," he
said, and his voice was so unemotional that the girl could almost
have laughed. Beyond one startled "Oh!" when the plank was ripped
out she had uttered no sound, and she followed his instructions now
implicitly. She was perched comfortably well above the river when she
felt that he was moving, not to either bank, but down the center of
the stream. Suddenly he let go the boat, which had swung broadside on.

"It is sinking, and the weight was pulling me over," he explained,
still in the same quiet way, as though he were stating the merest
commonplace. Some thrill that she could not account for vibrated
through her body. She was not frightened in the least. She had the
most complete confidence in this man, whose head was braced against
her left thigh, and whose arm was clasping her skirts closely round
her ankles.

"Which side do you mean to make for?" she asked.

"I hardly know. You are higher up than me. Perhaps you can decide best
as to the set of the current. The boat seems to have been carried to
the right."

[Illustration: "Pity I'm not a circus lady, to balance myself on your
head," said Cynthia. _Page 209_]

"Yes. I think the river shoals to the left."

"Suppose we try the other way first. The hotel is on that side."

"Anything you like."

He took a cautious step, then another. The water was rising. Luckily
the current was not very strong or he could not have stood against it.

"No good," he said. "We must go back."

"Pity I'm not a circus lady. Then I might have balanced myself
gracefully on the top of your head."

He murmured something indistinctly, but Cynthia fancied she caught the
words:

"You're a dear, anyhow