not know how long I had sat thus, supremely content, when I was
suddenly aroused by a rustling close at hand.

"Hist!"

I looked up sharply, and beheld a head, a head adorned with sundry
feathers, and a face hideously streaked with red and green paint; but
there was no mistaking those golden curls--it was the Imp!

"Hist!" he repeated, bringing out the word with a prolonged hiss, and
then--before I could even guess at his intention--there was the swift
gleam of a knife, a splash of the severed painter, and caught by the
tide the old boat swung out, and was adrift.

The Imp stood gazing on his handiwork with wide eyes, and then as I
leaped to my feet something in my look seemed to frighten him, for
without a word he turned and fled. But all my attention was centred in
the boat, which was drifting slowly into mid-stream with Lisbeth still
fast asleep. And as I watched its sluggish progress, with a sudden
chill I remembered the weir, which foamed and roared only a short
half-mile away. If the boat once got drawn into that--!

Now, I am quite aware that under these circumstances the right and
proper thing for me to have done, would have been to throw aside my
coat, tear off my boots, etc., and "boldly breast the foamy flood." But
I did neither, for the simple reason that once within the 'foamy flood'
aforesaid, there would have been very little chance of my ever getting
out again, for--let me confess the fact with the blush of shame--I am
no swimmer.

Yet I was not idle, far otherwise. Having judged the distance between
the drifting boat and the bank, I began running along, seeking the
thing I wanted. And presently, sure enough, I found it--a great
pollard oak, growing upon the edge of the water, that identical tree
with the 'stickie-out' branches which has already figured in these
narratives as the hiding-place of a certain pair of silk stockings.

Hastily swinging myself up, I got astride the lowest branch, which
projected out over the water. I had distanced the boat by some hundred
yards, and as I sat there I watched its drift, one minute full of hope,
and the next as miserably uncertain. My obvious intention was to crawl
out upon the branch until it bent with my weight, and so let myself
into, or as near the boat as possible. It was close now, so close that
I could see the gleam of Lisbeth's hair and the point of the little tan
shoe. With my eyes on this, I writhed my way along the bough, which
bent mor