Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/108

98 A few moments more, and with a roar as of the surf breaking through a crevice in the rocks, the body of earth was belched forth. The waters rushed headlong into the chasm below. The child disappeared in the seething waters.

"Great God! the dam has burst," exclaimed Travers, seeing the solid wall of water coming down the cutting towards them like' a sudden flood in a northern Bilabong. Seemingly there was no escape. Gwyneth, who had not recovered from her former excitement, seeing the body of water approaching, sank in a swoon.

Seizing the unconscious girl in his arms, leaping on to a bank of clay that had been left obtruding, the young man flung his burden on some bushes that were growing on a ledge a few feet above. Just as he himself clutched a sapling, the waters roaring down the ravine washed the clay from beneath his feet, flooding the works twenty feet deep! For some seconds the young man hung suspended above the water-floods, then with a violent effort flung himself, as only an athlete could do, across the sapling. Lifting Gwyneth on to the top of the bank, he began to chafe her hands and call her by name. In a few moments the girl was sufficiently recovered to walk unaided.

As they returned, and Travers was wondering how the embankment came to give way, thanking heaven meanwhile for their miraculous escape, they came upon a man with a child upon his knees. The stranger was rocking himself, weeping and laughing by turns. The boy was drenched. Face and hands and legs were blood-marked.

"He's coming round! He's coming to! My son! My son!" the man was saying as the pair approached.

"It's Willie! How did he get hurt?" asked Travers, as the child opened his eyes.