o time, and beating the water with his hands.

Then Harry could see an effort of the reason made over the animal
faculties, and for a few moments the drowning man took a few steady
strokes, but only to utter a gurgling cry and throw up his hands, beat
the water again, and go under.

The moment before Harry Paul seemed to have been exerting his full
strength to force the boat through the water, but an accession of
strength came to him, and with a few fierce thrusts he drove her bows
into the edge of the current, which gave it so quick a snatch that it
was whirled round, and its occupant nearly lost his footing; but he was
too practised a boatman for that. Recovering himself directly, he
planted a foot on either side, the oar bent in the water, and, getting
the boat's head right, he forced her along farther and farther into the
current, with which she seemed to race onward towards the drowning man.

He was quite a hundred yards from him yet; but rapidly diminishing the
distance now, for the boat seemed to tear along; but Harry's heart sank
lower and lower, and the chilly feeling of despair grew more strong as,
just when he had reduced the distance to about fifty yards, he saw a
hand appear for a moment above the water, and then disappear, leaving
the glistening surface perfectly blank.

Harry uttered a hoarse cry as he still sculled along, his eyes fixed
upon the spot where the hand had disappeared, and then tracing in
imagination the course the drowning man would take as he was swept along
beneath the surface, he made for the place.

It was in imagination, but his mental calculation was not far wrong, for
within a few yards of where it might be expected, and not ten from where
he was now sculling, he saw something roll up as it were to the surface,
there was a gleam of white in the sunlit water, and then it was
disappearing again, when, acting upon the impulse of the moment, Harry
loosened his hold of the oar, took two steps forward over the thwarts,
and leaped into the sea.

As Harry Paul disappeared in the swift current the boat rocked and
danced, and was sent many feet away by the impulse it received; but as
he rose to the surface, regardless of everything but the drowning man he
was striving to save, the boat swept by him, lightened of its load, and
was whirled slowly round and round.

It was a matter of impulse, and Harry Paul's experience should have
taught him that keeping perfectly cool, and urging the bo