Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/45

 blood, brain, paralysed for the moment—gazing at the spot where his playmate had disappeared.

Another moment and her head and hands appeared. She struggled bravely for life, while the circling current carried her quickly to the lower end of the pool.

Robin's energies returned, as he afterwards said, like an electric shock, but accompanied with a terrible sinking of the heart, for he knew that he could not swim! His education in this important particular had been neglected. He sprang round to the lower end of the pool just in time to hold out his hand to the drowning girl He almost touched her outstretched hand as she swept towards the turbulent waters below, but failed to grasp it.

For the first time in his life our little hero was called on to face death voluntarily. Another moment and Madge would have been caught in the boiling stream that rushed towards the fall below. He was equal to the occasion. He sprang right upon Madge and caught her in his arms. There was no need to hold on to her. In the agony of fear the poor child clasped the boy in a deadly embrace. They were whirled violently round and hurled against a rock. Robin caught it with one hand, but it was instantly torn from his grasp. The waters overwhelmed them, and again sent them