Weigall’s superstitious terror left him.  A man was there, struggling to free himself from the suction beneath the Strid, swept down, doubtless, but a moment before his arrival, perhaps as he stood with his back to the current.

He stepped as close to the edge as he dared.  The hand doubled as if in imprecation, shaking savagely in the face of that force which leaves its creatures to immutable law; then spread wide again, clutching, expanding, crying for help as audibly as the human voice.

Weigall dashed to the nearest tree, dragged and twisted off a branch with his strong arms, and returned as swiftly to the Strid.  The hand was in the same place, still gesticulating as wildly; the body was undoubtedly caught in the rocks below, perhaps already half-way along one of those hideous shelves.  Weigall let himself down upon a lower rock, braced his shoulder against the mass beside him, then, leaning out over the water, thrust the branch into the hand.  The fingers clutched it convulsively.  Weigall tugged powerfully, his own feet dragged perilously near the edge.  For a moment he produced no impression, then an arm shot above the waters.

The blood sprang to Weigall’s head; he was choked with the impression that the Strid had him in her roaring hold, and he saw nothing.  Then the mist cleared.  The hand and arm were nearer, although the rest of the body was still concealed by the foam.  Weigall peered out with distended eyes.  The meagre light revealed in the cuffs links of a peculiar device.  The fingers clutching the branch were as familiar.

Weigall forgot the slippery stones, the terrible death if he stepped too far.  He pulled with passionate will and muscle.  Memories flung themselves into the hot light of his brain, trooping rapidly upon each other’s heels, as in the thought of the drowning.  Most of the pleasures of his life, good and bad, were identified in some way with this friend.  Scenes of college days, of travel, where they had deliberately sought adventure and stood between one another and death upon more occasions than one, of hours of delightful companionship among the treasures of art, and others in the pursuit of pleasure, flashed like the changing particles of a kaleidoscope.  Weigall had loved several women; but he would have flouted in these moments the thought that he had ever loved any woman as he loved Wyatt Gifford.  There were so many charming women in the world, and in the thirty-two years of his life he had never known another man to whom he had cared to give his intimate friendship.

He threw himself on his face.  His wrists were cracking, the skin was torn from his hands.  The fingers still gripped the stick.  There was life in them yet.

Suddenly something gave way.  The hand swung about, tearing the branch from Weigall’s grasp.  The body had been liberated and flung outward, though still submerged by the foam and spray.

Weigall scrambled to his feet and sprang along the rocks, knowing that the danger from suction was over and that Gifford must be carried straight to the quiet pool.  Gifford was a fish in the water and could live under it longer than most men.  If he survived this, it would not be the first time that his pluck and science had saved him from drowning.