I clutched the pommel with both hands, locking my legs under his chest as we struck the stinging, biting waters and went under. It seemed long before we came up and I could see the white gown going down again. I clutched it with one hand, drawing her head clear of the water against my breast. I felt the horse moving easily beneath me. Would he see the great bluffs and understand, or would he strike straight across for them and drown us all, whirling round and round, trying to find a passway up straight walls of rock? It all lay with him. It was correct instinct now or death. I threw the reins over his head, crying, "_Go out—your way, Satan!_" It was his good sense that saved us, his instinct rather, that is greater than sense. He lost no strength in useless floundering against steep walls for a landing. He seemed to know instantly. I felt him moving beneath me down stream while I held Elsie safe. Two, three, four hundred feet he swam, the great game chap, till we passed the bluff; then he floundered up and out on the bank like a great dog, shaking himself. *CHAPTER III* *THE AWAKENING* It was Colonel Goff who met me at the door of The Manor when I called the next night. Marget and Tammas were both there, silent, and with awed, sorrowful faces. Two doctors were in the house, for Elsie’s life and mind lay in the balance, and it seemed that a straw would turn them either way. It was Marget who spoke first. "Ay, Jackie—Jackie—’tis as I hinted to you, lad," said she, "it was in the blood of the Carfaxes, and but for your ride and leap, lad, our lassie had done what two of her grandames, two of the ladies of Carfax, did before her." Tammas, tears standing in his eyes, could only hold my hand. Colonel Goff led me into the library. For a while he was silent, his stolid face expressionless. Then he said very quietly, "Jack, the chances are all against her, one way or the other; it looks as if my little lassie is doomed to go the way of her house. If she survives the shock I am afraid her mind will not; that is what is hinging now, that is why we have sent for you again. It is only a chance—one chance in ten—but the doctors thought—as the shock that unminded her came through you, that you might—" I nodded. "I understand. I would give my life for her." He pressed my hand, his voice choking. "You proved that, my boy, you proved that. How you escaped, how that horse ever cleared that fence and cliff—