Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/416

 side of the obstruction. Such of my gear as had been placed upon my sitting platform had been whirled incontinently downstream, and I could see portions of it bobbing and ducking on the tumble of waters thirty yards below me. Then, one by one, these bits of flotsam dropped suddenly below the line of sight, disappearing at a point where an upleaping line of founi seemed to cut the stream at right angles from bank to bank.

Looking upriver, we saw the second of our rafts plunging down toward us, the two Malays at its bow and stern trying vainly to check its wild career; and even as we watched, the catastrophe befell and they were left clinging to a rock in the same plight. as ourselves. Their raft, breaking away, darted down toward us, scraped past us by a miracle, and disappeared in a shattered condition in the wake of my lost baggage. My men on the two remaining rafts had become aware of the danger in time, and we could see them making fast to the bank a couple of hundred yards upstream.

Sitting stranded upon a rock in the middle of the river with the boiling waters of the rapid leaping up at me like a pack of hounds when its kill is held aloft, we shrieked suggestions to one another as lo what should be our next move. The only thing was to swin for it, and cautiously I let my body down into the torrent and pushed out vigorously for the shore. The current fought me like a live thing, but the river was narrow, and after a rather desperate strag- gle I drew myself out of the water on the left bank