Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/367

Rh power that built these bridges and forged chains around subject peoples as unbreakable as these foundations of stone, that always faced and baffled the futile efforts of the stream.

I had raised one foot to the rail to bend back and jump into the water. In my mind was the thought that the swirling current would catch me and carry me underneath the bridge and down the hundred yards to a group of anchored barges, loaded with logs and planks, where I would be quickly sucked down beneath the hulls and into the network of anchors and chains and be freed from all my physical and mental strife.

Another moment and I should have been in the water, but just at that instant I was held by a piercing cry that came from directly behind me. I shuddered and looked around, to see a man, poorly clad and desperate with despair, climb abruptly over the bridge rail and jump into the water. Without even stopping to look for him, I ran across to the down-stream side of the bridge, where there was some life-saving apparatus, and began throwing into the stream some big cork balls and a life ring that hung beside them.

Once I had these overboard, I looked down and saw the man floating along, helplessly and frantically waving his arms, whenever he came to the surface, and shouting the frightened appeals of a despairing drowning man. In a second he caught sight of the life ring just a few yards below him and struggled, with awkward, unskilled movements, to try to keep himself afloat until he could reach it. At the same time a lifeboat of the river police shot out from down below, in response to the cries of the guard on the bridge, and shortly pulled him out, pale, trembling and dumb with fright.

When the boat came ashore, I went down and looked