Lane calculated the distance with cunning eye.  He had been an expert boatman all his boyhood days.  By the expenditure of his last bit of reserve strength he could make the sluice.  And he redoubled his efforts to such an extent that the boat scarcely went down stream at all, yet edged closer to the right hand shore.  Lane saw a crowd of people on the bridge below the dam.  They were waving encouragement.  He saw men run down the steep river bank below the mill; and he knew they were going to be ready to assist him if he were fortunate enough to ride down the sluice into the shallow backwater on that side.

Rowing now with the most powerful of strokes, Lane kept the bow of the boat upstream and a little to the right.  Thus he gained more toward the shore.  But he must time the moment when it would be necessary to turn sharply.

“I can—­make—­it,” muttered Lane.  He felt no excitement.  The thing had been given him to do.  His strokes were swift, but there was no hurry.

Suddenly he felt a strange catching of breath in his lungs.  He coughed.  Blood, warm and salt, welled up from his throat.  Then his bitter, strangled cry went out over the waters.  At last he understood the voices of the river.

Lane quickened his strokes.  He swung the bow in.  He pointed it shoreward.  Straight for the opening of the sluice!  His last strokes were prodigious.  The boat swung the right way and shot into the channel.  Lane dropped his oars.  He saw men below wading knee-deep in the water.  The boat rode the incline, down to the long swell and curled yellow billows below, where it was checked with violent shock.  Lane felt himself propelled as if into darkness.

When Lane opened his eyes he recognized as through a veil the little parlor of the Idens.  All about him seemed dim and far away.  Faces and voices were there, indistinguishable.  A dark cloud settled over his eyes.  He dreamed but could not understand the dreams.  The black veil came and went.

What was the meaning of the numbness of his body?  The immense weight upon his breast!  Then it seemed he saw better, though he could not move.  Sunlight streamed in at the window.  Outside were maple leaves, gold and red and purple, swaying gently.  Then a great roaring sound seemed to engulf him.  The rapids?  The voice of the river.

Then Mel was there kneeling beside him.  All save her face grew vague.

“Swann?” he whispered.

“You saved his life,” said Mel.

“Ah!” And straightway he forgot.  “Mel—­what’s—­wrong—­with me?”

Mel’s face was like white marble and her hands on his trembled violently.  She could not answer.  But he knew.  There seemed to be a growing shadow in the room.  Her eyes held a terrible darkness.