We had drifted some little distance since we first easy’d, and a dull booming, that was in our ears at the time, had increased to a considerable roar. “Give way!” cried Duke; “turn her, Dolly!” The girl tugged at the right line, gave a gasp, dropped everything, scrambled to her feet, and screamed in a dreadful voice: “We are going over the weir!” “Sit down!” shouted Duke. “Pull, Renny, like a madman!” He shipped his oar, forced the girl into a sitting posture and clutched the inner line all in a moment. His promptitude saved us. I fought at the water with my teeth set; the boat’s nose plunged into the bank with a shock that sent us two sprawling, and the boat’s stern swung round dizzily. But before she could cast adrift again I was on my knees and had seized at a projecting root with a grasp like Quasimodo’s. “Hold on!” cried Duke, “till I come to you. It’s all right, Dolly; you’re quite safe now.” He crawled to me and grasped the root in his more powerful hands. “Now,” he said, “you take the painter and get out and drag us higher, out of the pull of the water. I’ll help you the best I can.” I complied, and presently the boat was drawn to a point so far above as to leave a wide margin for safety. We took our seats to pull across, with a look at one another of conscious guilt. Dolly sat quite silent and pale, though she shivered a little. “We didn’t know the river, and that’s a fact,” whispered Duke to me. “Of course we ought to have remembered the lock’s the other side.” We pulled straight across; then Duke said: “Here’s the shore, Dolly. Now, you and Trender get out, and I’ll take the boat on.” “By yourself? No, I won’t. I feel safe with you.” “Very well,” he answered, gently. “We’ll all go on together. There’s really no danger now we know what we’re about.” She cried, “No, Duke,” in a poor little quaking voice. We pulled into the lock cutting without further mishap, though the girl shrunk and blenched as we slid past, at a safe distance, the oblique comb of the weir. It was some minutes before the lock-keeper answered to our ringing calls, and then the sluices had to be raised and the lock filled from our side. The clash and thunder of the hidden water as it fell into the pit below sounded dismal enough in the darkness, and must, I knew, be dinning fresh terror into the heart of our already stricken naiad. But the hollow noise died off in due course, the creaking gate lumbered open and we floated with a sigh of relief into the weltering pool beyond. The sluices rattled down behind us, the keeper walked round to the further gate, and his figure appeared standing out against the sky, toiling with bent back at the levers. Suddenly I, who had been pulling bow, felt myself tilting over in a curious manner. “Hullo!” I cried. “What’s up with the boat?”