Faint and breathless Skene went down again, water bubbling in his eyes, choking in his throat, and all breath had left him ere he rose to the surface again, and saw Girolamo clinging to a rock round which swept the beginning of a rapid. He was visible for a moment only; exhaustion made him relax his hold. He sank, rose again only to sink; then a hand was visible once or twice above the water as he was swept away into eternity by the fierce current that bubbled round the sun-baked rocks. Then Skene felt hands laid upon him, and while English voices and exclamations came pleasantly to his half-dulled ears, he was dragged by soldiers on board one of the boats, where he lay so completely exhausted as to be almost insensible; and he had not fallen into the river a moment too soon, for, just as he did so, a group of armed Arabs, the followers of Moussa Abu Hagil, crowned with a spluttering fire of musketry, and with wild gesticulations, the rocks above the Nile. CHAPTER XLVI. MAUDE'S VISITOR. 'The lives of some families,' it is said, 'are exactly like a pool in which--without being exactly stagnant--nothing occurs to ruffle the surface of the water from year's end to year's end, and then come a series of tremendous splashes, like naughty boys throwing stones.' So it was with the Lindsays of Earlshaugh latterly, as we will soon have to show. The few weeks of his leave of absence that intervened before Jack Elliot would have inexorably to start for Egypt, glided happily and all too swiftly away, when he and Maude took up their residence at the pretty villa in the southern quarter of Edinburgh, near the ancient Grange Loan; and often if they sat silent, or lingered hand in hand amid the faded flower-beds of the garden, they seemed to be only listening--if one may say so--to the silent responses of their own hearts, and that language of instinct understood only by kindred souls. 'We have not exactly Aladdin's lamp in the house, Maude,' said Jack laughingly, 'nor have we all the luxuries of our future home at Braidielee, where now conservatories are springing up, a billiard-room being built, and gardens laid out, all for you; but we are happy as people can be----' 'Who have a coming separation to face and to endure, Jack,' she interrupted, with a break in her voice. In the newspapers they read the announcement of the marriage, at Earlshaugh, of 'Hawkey Sharpe, Esq., to Miss Annot Drummond, of South Belgravia,' at which Jack laughed loud and long. 'Well, Roland _is_ lucky to be out of the running there!--Sharpe, Esq.--I wonder he did not add "of Earlshaugh," and doubtless the creature would figure in all Roland's splendid jewels and gifts. Pah!' said he; but the gentle Maude had a kind of pity for the girl, and her views of the matter were somewhat mingled.