splintered bone. Donald, however, saw that I was going
to try the venture, and he was already up the bank unlocking the chain
without a word. The bucks were deposited in the stern of the boat, the
guns laid softly across them, covered with a plaid, and Dreadnought
followed slowly and sternly, and laid himself down with an air as if,
like Don Alphonso of Castile, 'the body trembled at the dangers into
which the soul was going to carry it.' I took the oars--there were no
directions to be given--Donald knew how to cross the pool, and every
other where we were used to ferry.

The boat's head was brought round to the stream, for it was necessary to
run her into it with the impulse of the back-water to shoot her forward,
or she would have been drawn back, stern foremost, into the eddy, where
the jaw of the water, over the point of the rock, would have swamped us
in an instant. Donald knelt at the bows, and held fast by a light
painter till I cried 'Ready!' when the little shallop sprung from the
rope, tilted away like a sea-bird, and glided towards the roaring
torrent. I looked over my shoulder; Donald was gripping the bows, his
teeth set fast, but a gleam of light was in his eye as we plunged
headlong into the bursting stream. A blow like the stroke of a mighty
wooden hammer lifted the boat into the surf; there was a crack as if her
bows were stove in, and she shot shivering through the pool, filled with
water to our knees, and sending the spray over us like a sheet. The
rocks and trees seemed to fly away; the roaring water spouted and
boiled, as it lifted up the boat, which spun round like a leaf, with her
starboard gunwale lipping with the waves; but a few seconds swept us
through the pool, and we were flying into the mad tumbling thunder of
the rapid below. I kept the larboard bow to the stream, and pulled with
all my might; but I thought she did not move, the eddy of the great
mid-stream seemed to fix her in the ridge of the torrent, and take her
along with it; the oars bent like willows to the strain, a boiling gush
from below lifted her bows, and threw her gunwale under the froth. I
thought we were gone, but I redoubled the last desperate strokes, and we
shot out of the foaming ridge towards the opposite bank, rolling, and
leaping, and plunging into the throat of the rapid. Donald sat like a
tiger ready for the spring, and as we neared the shore, bounded on the
grass with the chain. This checked the speed of the boat;