Finding a difficulty in forcing
the canoe through the rubbish, I told our only remaining Wakwafi
servant, whom I knew to be an excellent swimmer, to jump over,
dive under the drift, and catch him, knowing that as there were
no crocodiles in this lake he could come to no harm. Entering
into the fun of the thing, the man obeyed, and soon was dodging
about after the winged swan in fine style, getting gradually
nearer to the rock wall, against which the water washed as he
did so.
Presently he gave up swimming after the swan, and began to cry
out that he was being carried away; and, indeed, we saw that,
though he was swimming with all his strength towards us, he was
being drawn slowly to the precipice. With a few desperate strokes
of our paddles we pushed the canoe through the crust of drift
and rowed towards the man as hard as we could, but, fast as we
went, he was drawn faster to the rock. Suddenly I saw that before
us, just rising eighteen inches or so above the surface of the
lake, was what looked like the top of the arch of a submerged
cave or railway tunnel. Evidently, from the watermark on the
rock several feet above it, it was generally entirely submerged;
but there had been a dry season, and the cold had prevented the
snow from melting as freely as usual; so the lake was low and
the arch showed.
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