“Philip!  Philip!”

Like a madman he dashed up the rocky trail to the chasm, calling to Jeanne, shrieking to her, telling her that he was coming.  He reached the edge of the precipice and looked down.  Below him was the canoe and Jeanne.  She was fighting futilely against the resistless flood; he saw her paddle wrenched suddenly from her hands, and as it went swirling beyond her reach she cried out his name again.  Philip shouted, and the girl’s white face was turned up to him.  Fifty yards ahead of her were the first of the rocks.  In another minute, even less, Jeanne would be dashed to pieces before his eyes.  Thoughts, swifter than light, flashed through his mind.  He could do nothing for her, for it seemed impossible that any living creature could exist amid the maelstroms and rocks ahead.  And yet she was calling to him.  She was reaching up her arms to him.  She had faith in him, even in the face of death.

“Philip!  Philip!”

There was no m’sieur to that cry now, only a moaning, sobbing prayer filled with his name.

“I’m coming, Jeanne!” he shouted.  “I’m coming!  Hold fast to the canoe!”

He ran ahead, stripping off his coat.  A little below the first rocks a stunted banskian grew out of an earthy fissure in the cliff, with its lower branches dipping within a dozen feet of the stream.  He climbed out on this with the quickness of a squirrel, and hung to a limb with both hands, ready to drop alongside the canoe.  There was one chance, and only one, of saving Jeanne.  It was a chance out of a thousand—­ten thousand.  If he could drop at the right moment, seize the stern of the canoe, and make a rudder of himself, he could keep the craft from turning broadside and might possibly guide it between the rocks below.  This one hope was destroyed as quickly as it was born.  The canoe crashed against the first rock.  A smother of foam rose about it and he saw Jeanne suddenly engulfed and lost.  Then she reappeared, almost under him, and he launched himself downward, clutching at her dress with his hands.  By a supreme effort he caught her around the waist with his left arm, so that his right was free.

Ahead of them was a boiling sea of white, even more terrible than when they had looked down upon it from above.  The rocks were hidden by mist and foam; their roar was deafening.  Between Philip and the awful maelstrom of death there was a quieter space of water, black, sullen, and swift—­the power itself, rushing on to whip itself into ribbons among the taunting rocks that barred its way to the sea.  In that space Philip looked at Jeanne.  Her face was against his breast.  Her eyes met his own, and In that last moment, face to face with death, love leaped above all fear.  They were about to die, and Jeanne would die in his arms.  She was his now—­forever.  His hold tightened.  Her face came nearer.  He wanted to shout, to let her know what he had meant to say at Fort o’ God.  But his voice would have been like a whisper in a hurricane.  Could Jeanne understand?  The wall of foam was almost in their faces.  Suddenly he bent down, crushed his face to hers, and kissed her again and again.  Then, as the maelstrom engulfed them, he swung his own body to take the brunt of the shock.