self-possession desert him. As the vexed and whirling water raised up
the one side or the other of his frail bark, he would incline his body
in this or that direction to preserve the equilibrium, now standing
upright and now cowering close to the surface of the uncertain
footing. And now the block approached the throat, where the torrent
ran the swiftest and was most turbulent. The child seemed to have
escaped thus far by miracle, but now it appeared impossible he would
be able to maintain his place. His head must become dizzy, his courage
fail in the awful confusion of so many threatening dangers; the
tormented waves must upset the block, or another must strike against
it and cast the boy into the water. And now the cake has reached the
icy barrier stretched across the stream. It strikes; it is sucked in
below and disappears.

The spell-bound spectators, their eyes fastened upon the danger of the
boy, had not noticed the figure of a man, who, descending the opposite
bank, and clambering at considerable risk over the masses of heaped
up ice, stood waiting for the approach of the child. So truly had he
judged the sweep of the current, that he had planted himself upon the
edge of the ice at the precise spot where the block struck. Reaching
out his arm at the moment when it slipped beneath, he seized the boy
by the collar of his jacket and drew him to the place on which he
stood. As soon as the crowd caught sight of the man, they saw that it
was Holden.

The position of the two was still one of danger. A false step, the
separating of the ice, the yielding of a cake might precipitate both
into the torrent. But the heart of the man had never felt the emotion
of fear. He cast his eyes deliberately round, and with a prompt
decision took his course. Raising the rescued child in his arms, he