had never been definite, and he had forgotten it--was busy in fact
with the doubt--when, half-way across, one of the white squalls
swooped down on them and the youngster in the bows, instead of
pulling for dear life, dropped his oar with a face of panic.

Johnny felt the jerk, heard the Rector's cry of warning, and in two
seconds (he never knew how) had leapt over the stern oar, across the
thwarts, past the kicking and terrified Bounce--with whom the Rector
was struggling as she threatened to leap overboard--and reached the
bows in time to snatch the oar as it slipped over the side. But it
had snapped both the thole-pins short off in their sockets and was
useless. The boat's nose fell off and they were swept down towards
the anchored hulk below. Johnny could only wait for the crash, and
he waited: and in those few instants--the doubt being still upon
him--bethought him that likely enough the Rector could not swim, or
would be disabled by his lameness. And . . . was he sorry? He had
not answered this question when the crash came--the ferry-boat
striking the very stem of the keel, her gunwale giving way to it with
a slow grinding noise, then with a bursting crack as the splinters
broke inwards. As it seemed to him, there were two distinct bumps,
and between them the boat filled slowly and the mare slid away into
the water. He heard voices shouting on board the keel. The water
rose to his knees and he sank in it, almost on top of Mr. Wesley.
At once he felt the whirl of the current, but not before he had
gripped the Rector's collar. The other hand he flung up blindly.
By Providence the keel was freighted with sea-coal and low in the
water, and as the pair slid past, Johnny's fingers found and gripped
the bulwark-coaming. So for a half-minute he hung--his body and the
Rector's trailing out almost on the surface with the force of the
water, his arm almost dislocated by the strain--until a couple of
colliers came running to help and hauled them on board, the Rector
first. They had gripped the small boy as the boat sank, and he stood
in the bows scared and dripping, but otherwise nothing the worse.
His brother, it appeared, could swim like a fish and was already a
good hundred yards downstream, not fighting the current, but edging
little by little for the home shore. And astern of him battled the
mare.

The colliers had a light boat on deck, but with it even in calm water
they could have done little to help the