Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/47

Rh His next actions were unpremeditated. He ran out upon the bridge, threw himself down upon the innermost timber, and calculated the drop to the glassy brink immediately below—not less than a fathom. And the canoe was now within a hundred feet.

A swift glance gauged its course: Alan turned, dropped his legs in the space between the timbers, and let his body fall backward, arms extended, and swung braced by his feet beneath the outer timber.

He was aware of the canoe hurtling onward, its sharp prow aimed directly for his head. In an instant hands closed around his wrists, a tremulous weight tore at his arms, and with an effort of inconceivable difficulty he began to lift the woman up out of the foaming jaws of death.

Somehow that impossible feat was achieved, somehow the woman gained a hold upon his body and contrived to clamber over him to the timbers, and somehow he in turn pulled himself up to safety. Later he became aware that the woman had crawled to safety on the farther shore; he pulled himself together and imitated her example. Then he discovered the face of Judith Trine close to his, and he heard her voice, barely audible above the voices of conflagration and cascade:

"You fool! Why did you save me? I tell you, I have sworn your death"