Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/110

106 e could have reached it I can't say. I doubt if he could have stemmed the force of the boiling flood; at any rate, the sight of the narrow channel, into which we seemed to be fast drifting, proved too much for my self-command. I tried to turn Sepoy's head too quickly with the rein; the next instant he rolled over, and I was under the water.

I had kicked my feet out of the stirrups before starting, so I was at once free from the horse. Instinctively I struck out, felt something touch my hand, and grasped it; it was the top of one of the flood-swept bushes. The current catching my extended body as I hung on to the branch, swung me suddenly and violently to one side. Luckily it wrenched apart my grasp, for I was flung out of the fierce strength of the rushing waters into a comparatively calm part, and a few strokes put me into safety. I scrambled somehow on to the bank, and then fell down. I expect I must have become unconscious, for I don't remember anything more till I looked up and saw Creek's face bending over me.

'Where's my horse?' I said, croaking like a raven with a sore throat, for I didn't seem to have my own voice at all.

'Not here, certainly, for he's in the head of the big tree, and as dead as a herring; the only wonder is you are not the same,' was Creek's answer.

When I got up the water seemed yet to be sweeping and eddying by me, and the roar still in my cars; but I was soon able to steady myself, and the stock