"Sit on my shoulder. Steady yourself with your hands on my head," he said, and his voice was so unemotional that the girl could almost have laughed. Beyond one startled "Oh!" when the plank was ripped out she had uttered no sound, and she followed his instructions now implicitly. She was perched comfortably well above the river when she felt that he was moving, not to either bank, but down the center of the stream. Suddenly he let go the boat, which had swung broadside on. "It is sinking, and the weight was pulling me over," he explained, still in the same quiet way, as though he were stating the merest commonplace. Some thrill that she could not account for vibrated through her body. She was not frightened in the least. She had the most complete confidence in this man, whose head was braced against her left thigh, and whose arm was clasping her skirts closely round her ankles. "Which side do you mean to make for?" she asked. "I hardly know. You are higher up than me. Perhaps you can decide best as to the set of the current. The boat seems to have been carried to the right." [Illustration: "Pity I'm not a circus lady, to balance myself on your head," said Cynthia. _Page 209_] "Yes. I think the river shoals to the left." "Suppose we try the other way first. The hotel is on that side." "Anything you like." He took a cautious step, then another. The water was rising. Luckily the current was not very strong or he could not have stood against it. "No good," he said. "We must go back." "Pity I'm not a circus lady. Then I might have balanced myself gracefully on the top of your head." He murmured something indistinctly, but Cynthia fancied she caught the words: "You're a dear, anyhow." "What did you say?" she asked. "It is high time we were out of here," he answered, turning his back to the pressure of water, which was very great in that place. "What will happen if there are two channels, and we have pitched on a bank in the middle?" "I must walk about a bit until I find the right track. The Wye is not very deep at this point. It must shelve rapidly in one direction or the other." "But it mayn't." "In that event I shall lower you into the water, ask you to hold tight to my coat collar with both hands, and let me swim. It is only a few yards." "But I can swim, too." "Not in a long dress.... Ah, here we are. I thought so."