Maisie was behaving herself well. Used to the water, but so weighted and snarled in her skirts that she was unable to swim, she nevertheless did not hamper Harry by needlessly clinging to him, but simply grasped his shoulders and clung tenaciously, though speechless and half drowned already. Yet Harry was having a hard time of it. He was a good swimmer, but the ice-cold water seemed to grip his chest and stop his breathing. He held Maisie up and looked for the Princess, but the boat, with its sheet caught, had swung off the wind and was rapidly sailing away. He could not reach the shore, and he knew it. He could hold Maisie up for a while, if he spared his strength as much as possible. There was a chance that help might come, though he could not tell from where. His head whirled, but he swam mechanically. Once they went under, and then as they came up something struck his shoulder and he grasped it and held on. The swift tide had floated them out toward the mooring, and set them alongside the skiff that he had inadvertently left there some hours before. Thus kindly Fate helps us oftentimes in little things. It was only an impulse that had made him leave the skiff at the mooring, and now it was to be his salvation and Maisie’s as well. There he clung, to be sure, but he was unable to lift the girl into the skiff. His head whirled with excitement and fatigue, but he would not let go. The iron grip of the icy water on his chest seemed to crush the strength out of him, and he scarcely knew when the ferryman, his clumsy craft quivering with new-found speed, swung alongside and lifted first Maisie and then him into the boat. Then with a strong sweep of his oar the old man swung the boat’s head toward the shore, and fell to sculling desperately without the utterance of a word. Harry was still dazed and breathless, and Maisie was the first to recover speech. “I’m sorry I made so much trouble,” she said faintly to Griggs, “but we were nearly drowned, and would have been quite if you had not come just as you did. We thank you very much.” Then she turned to Harry, who could still only smile faintly and shiver. “I have to thank you, too, for my life. I should have gone down before any one else could get to me if you had not been so quick and brave.” She held out her hand to him and he clasped it for a moment, while his teeth managed to chatter that it was all right. The ferryman turned his head over his shoulder and grinned cheerfully and reassuringly across his pipe, which was still gripped in his teeth, but he said no word, only went on sculling. Then the boat reached the landing and he helped Maisie out and gave a hand to Harry. The boy rose with difficulty, he was so chilled. “Thank you, Griggs,” he said as he stepped on the wharf. “You came just in the nick of time, and I’ll see that you have more than thanks for your trouble and coolness.”