Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Polish-Greek-Belgian-Hungarian).djvu/140

138 with trembling hands he pointed to his dripping clothes. "I have three children, Dolf, yet I have been in twice. I have no strength left."

Dolf turned to the pale faces which stood in a circle round him.

"Cowards," he cried. "Is there not one among you who will save a drowning man?"

The greater number bent their heads and shrugged their shoulders, feeling that they had deserved the reproach.

"Dolf," the old man cried, "as sure 's death 's death, I shall try again, if you do not go."

"God! God! There he is!" cried the men at that moment, who were moving the torches over the water. "We saw his head and feet. Help!"

Dolf threw off his coat and said to the boatmen coldly: "I will go."

Then he spoke again: "One of you run to Madame Puzzel and take her back to the Guldenvisch at once."

He made the sign of the cross and muttered between his teeth: "Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save sinners, have mercy on me."

He went down the bank, with bared breast, and the crowd who followed him trembled for his life. He looked for a moment at the traitorous river, on which the torches dripped tears of blood, as if he saw death before him. The flood