gave way. She felt the sharp sting of it, and then she plunged
into the current, and swept down with it, and in the edge of the
pool struck out with all her last strength until her feet touched
bottom, and she could stand. She wiped the water from her eyes,
sobbing in her breathless fear--her mighty hope. Peter had reached
the shore. He had dragged himself out, and had crumpled down in a
broken heap--but he was facing her, his bright eyes wide open and
questing for her. Slowly Nada went to him. Until now, when it was
all over, she had not realized how helplessly weak she was.
Something was turning round and round in her head, and she was so
dizzy that the shore swam before her eyes, and it seemed quite
right to her that Peter should be alive--and not dead. She was
still in a foot of water when she fell on her knees and dragged
herself the rest of the way to him, and gathered him in her arms
again, close up against her wet, choking breast.

And there the sun shone down upon them, without the shade of a
twig overhead; and the water that a little while before had sung
of death rippled with its old musical joy, and about them the
birds sang, and very near to them a pair of mating red-squirrels
chattered and played in a mountain-ash tree. And Nada's hair
brightened in the sun, and began to ripple into curls at the end,
and Peter's bristling whiskers grew dry--so that half an hour
after she had dragged herself out of the water there was a new
light in the girl's eyes, and a color in her cheeks that was like
the first dawning of summer pink in the heart of a rose.

"We're a'most dry enough to go to Mister Jolly Roger, Peter," she
whispered, a little thrill in her voice.