Another moment and he would be within reach of the lilies. The girl’s brain reeled and a deathly faintness stole over her, as she watched every motion of the oars as they rose and fell, catching the gold of the sunshine and carrying it down with them into the water’s dark depth. Standing there, with strained eyes, she saw him reach for the lilies: then--all in an instant--boat and boatman were suddenly swallowed up in the seething underground whirlpool, disappearing from sight, and not even a ripple marred the spot to show where he had gone down--down to death among the beautiful, shining, white water lilies that he had risked sweet life for at her command! CHAPTER XXII. THE RESCUE. “The dream is over, and I stand Alone upon the sun-kissed shore; My heart is lone--empty each hand; My love comes here no more. Oh, hush! ye waves; dance not in play When I am waiting here; Ye breezes, pass upon your way, There is no pastime here. “Oh, love, lost love, the world shall know No more of this unfinished tale; It shall not taunt with laughter low Because I chance to fail. And so, I stand alone and mute Upon the bare, forsaken shore, And broken is Love’s fairy lute. I hear its notes no more.” For an instant, that seemed the length of eternity, Jess stood on the bank, watching, with strained eyes, the spot where the boat and its occupant had gone down to death among the treacherous lilies that floated to and fro on the bosom of the waters. In all the after years of her life she could never fully explain just how it was accomplished. The girl was only conscious of seizing a little skiff that floated idly near at hand, and rowing for dear life to the scene of the catastrophe. She was indifferent to the awful danger, though she had just witnessed a cruel example of it. Her one thought was to seek death in the same spot where the victim of her foolish caprice had gone down to his untimely fate. In that moment her athletic powers stood the girl in good stead, for the arms that wielded the oars were like steel, which told in the powerful strokes with which she sent the little skiff fairly flying over the placid water. In less time than it takes to describe it, Jess had reached the spot; but her weight was too slight to capsize the boat, though she could feel it being drawn down--down--down. She reached out and grasped the lilies, and as she did so, the boat disappeared, and she was left struggling in the water, with apparently the same fate which her hapless companion met awaiting her. And as she realized this, she realized also that her hands were grasping something else beside the slimy stems of the lilies. One glance, and the heart in her bosom seemed to fairly leap with wild exultation and joy. Her fingers were clutching tightly the hand of the man whom she had told herself that she would rescue, or she would meet the same fate which had befallen him.