People can’t hold their breath for as long. Then it was up again. The swimmer had flung himself on his back and was floating. And I—without actually realizing what I had been doing, I must have cast off my wrap again, have splashed through the creamy surf of the first waves into the smoother jade-green depths beyond, for I found myself swimming, striking out, out—from the shore.... Still I didn’t know how I’d started—or why. Except that here was a human being in trouble whom, somehow or other, I had to help. I didn’t think about who it was. It wasn’t because of that broken shout of “_Nancy!_” I’m sure. No; I am sure that, just then, no thought of saving Still Waters was in my mind. It was just another human being who had called to me; and towards whom I swam so desperately, making, in my hurry, such a splashing over each stroke that it seemed to me endless before I came up to where he floated on his back. Automatically I remembered something our swimming-instructor had drilled into us at school. I found myself telling myself that it was dangerous—dangerous to get within reach of a drowning person’s hands. They’d grip you, and you’d both go under. “Keep behind him,” I was telling myself. “Keep behind him!” But there was no need for me to trouble about avoiding his clutch. When he spoke, I realized that he, in his danger, was keeping his head far better than I was. He was calm. “Cramp,” I heard him say, “in my left leg. You’ll have to tow me. Can you swim on your back?” “Yes.” Whether I could or not, I supposed, I should have to. So in turn I flung myself on my back, and caught hold of him under those hard, strong-feeling arms of his. Then began the struggle back to shore. The tide was setting in, thank heaven! and as long as we were in the deep waters it was not so hard. Presently we came to where the waves began to break. The wind was blowing off the shore, blowing the surfy crests of the waves backwards as a girl’s hair is blown across her face ... and presently I was half blinded by the spray that dashed over my head, into my eyes and mouth. I choked, panted.... “Rest a minute,” said a voice close to me. “No hurry. The tide will take us both in.” ... But, getting my breath, I struggled on again, yard by yard. Again I got a mouthful; spluttered, coughed. “All right—all right—take it easy!” the voice was saying. I simply couldn’t pay any attention to that—I was labouring with all my strength for both—for myself and this log in the water that I must—_must_ get ashore. I was startled when he gave a sudden powerful jerk of his shoulders that altered our course. “You’ll have us on to the reef,” he said. “I’ll steer—don’t work so hard—” I heard myself gasping. —“don’t get flurried, Nancy!”