As Joslin now paused, bracing back on the painter of the heavy skiff, it was caught by a strong side current where the stream was flung back from its impact against the rocky bank—a current which ran out, headed almost midstream, toward the main break of the big wave. The boat, held thus strongly, had no great bearing on the water at its bow, but Haddon, unaccustomed to such matters, forgot that, or did not know it. Before Joslin could stop him he was clumsily bending over as though to climb once more into the boat, tugging at the gunwale to pull it closer to him. It was then, in some way—no one could tell how—that his foot stumbled and caught at a ledge of the rock. He pitched forward into the unstable portion of the boat, stumbled, and, as the wash of the water came in-board, went over, still under the impetus of his fall, and sank, directly into the outflung current. It all had happened in an instant, nor could mortal man have prevented it. Marcia Haddon for just half a moment saw the upturned face of her husband as it disappeared, a face on which horror was written—unspeakable and unforgettable horror. The next instant he was gone—he was under. “Quick!” called Joslin sharply to Marcia Haddon, and cast her the rope. “Make it fast over something.” But he did not stop to see whether or not her weak strength would serve to hold the boat. He was kicking off his shoes, throwing off his coat, even as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the water, as he made ready for a leap few men would have dared. A hat floated, far below. But nothing else showed—neither here in the eddy, nor yonder in the side current, nor in the great pool below. Haddon had gone deep in his fall, he might have been carried out somewhere midstream, but why did he not show on the surface somewhere in all this time? All the time he called back over his shoulder reassuringly to Marcia Haddon, but he could not see what she was doing—only he waited, eyes outward, straining, to find some object on the waters—some object now so fatally long delayed. But nothing showed. At length, hesitating no longer, he did what no man ever had been known to do before. He dived straight out for the foot of the up-flung crest of the Narrows of the Kentucky—straight down under the roll of the “king breaker” itself. Joslin before now had seen a log roll about here for hours in the clutch of the back-turned wave, tossing up and down until at length some freak of the current set it free. He fancied that perhaps Haddon might be caught in something of the same way. It was one chance in ten thousand for him now, one in hundreds for the man who was giving him that chance. Would he win?