alante would have been in there too.

But that second was just sufficient for a pair of arms to close round
her, effectually holding her back.

"Not you, Lalante, d'you hear! I'm a strong swimmer. Now--let me go."

He almost threw her from him, and that purposely, for stumbling against
Frank, the terrified boy had promptly and firmly clutched hold of her.
She could not go into the water--and, incidentally, to her death--
without dragging him with her. In the same quick atom of time Warren,
with a straight, clear, springy leap, had felt the turgid waters of the
monster flood close over his head.

He had leaped to come down feet foremost, as was the safest. He risked
damaging his head the less, and could see for the fraction of a moment
longer the exact position of the drowning boy; and even that fraction of
a moment may mean the difference between life and death in a situation
such as this.

Not a second too soon had he jumped. As he rose to the surface the boy
was just sweeping past him. Darting forth an arm, he seized him by the
hand, but--still kept him at arm's length.

"Charlie," he said, "be plucky now and keep cool. Whatever happens,
don't grab hold of me. I won't let go of you but--don't grab me."

The boy, half-dazed, seemed to understand. The while the current was
whirling them down with frightful velocity. Suddenly something seized
Warren by the foot, dragging him down; then as the waters roared over
his head the awfulness of the moment came upon him that this was doom.
Then--he was free.

A last desperate violent kick had done it. What had entangled him was
really the fork in a bough of a sunken tree. But it was time, for on
rising to the surface his eyes were swelled and his head seemed to go
round giddily, and his breath came in laboured pants; but he had never
slackened his hold of the boy.

The latter was now unconscious, and consequently a dead weight. Warren,
wiry athletic man as he was, felt his strength failing. The flood was
as a very monster, and in its grip he himself was but a shaving, as it
roared in his ears, its spume blinding him as it tossed him on high with
the crest of its great churning waves. With desperate presence of mind
he strove to keep his head. As he rose on each great wave he saw the
long broad road of foaming water in front, bounded by its two dark lines
of half-submerged willows--then he saw something else.

An uprooted tree was bearing down upon him,