view. But he must hurry, for now the masses of ice are thundering against the frame-house, gathering against it and pounding with every wash of the flood, so that it seems as if the frail timbers can hardly hold out another five minutes.

Looping one end of his stout rope around the branch, he flings the other to the children, shouting to them to catch and hold it for a minute. His voice is scarcely heard above the roar of the waters. By this time, too, the little ones, dismally terrified by the shaking and quivering of the whole building, are sobbing again and almost helpless. Once, twice, three times, the rope is flung. Twice they miss it; the third time they catch it, but it slips from between their fingers and dangles over the water. But the fourth time they What is the next step?

I clutch and hold it.

The boy climbs down to the branch below, straddles it, and is soon across and on the roof again. Firmly tying the end of the rope round Izah, he is off again and climbing back to his old position on the platform. But now comes the real work.

Unlooping his end of the rope from the branch, he winds it twice round his wrist, kneels down where his knees can get a good grip of the boards, shuts his teeth, and pulls. A scream is the answer; but socn Izah is off the roof and dangling in mid-air. She is a plump little girl, and the tension on the boy's arms is far more than he looked for. The sweat breaks out all over him, his knees tremble, his arms are almost pulled out of their sockets; but he holds on, and with short quick breath manages to tug hand over hand at the rope until Izah, sobbing and screaming still, is high enough to catch hold of the jutting boards, and in a moment he has her safe.

Now it is Jennie's turn. Again the end is looped; again the boy is scrambling across the branch; again he gains the roof; and, having fastened Jennie to the rope, again returns.

Jennie is four years younger than Izah, but, all the same, she is heavier. But now there are two to help with the pulling. It is two minutes at least, though, before they have the youngest safe beside them, for by this time the boy is almost tired out. At length they are safe together-for the moment, at least; and he turns to look at the house.

The waves are steadily rising, and are now lapping at the kitchen windowsills. A brief terrifying thought flashes across the boy's brain. What if the waters should in time rise right over the roof and up the tree to the platform on which they are resting? But, no; their perch is surely too high. He does not breathe this fear to the girls. They are trembling now, worse than ever. The excitement has passed, and despair is taking its place.

Fearing that they might tumble off the platform, Henry now managed to tie them to the tree behind, leaving them enough rope to allow them to move about. And so the three sat, scanning the waters desperately, and finding no boat in sight, no chance of succour.

Faster came the flood, driving more lumps of ice against the elm, and jarring its old trunk till it shook to the roots. Great logs of drift-wood were crashing into the windows of the house; around, a few of the cattle were still swimming, lowing all the time most pitiably-and these were the most agonising sounds of all. Though the boy kept it to himself, gradually it was borne in upon him that no help would come, that no boat could venture across amid the ice and rushing timber. It would be shivered to matchwood. There was no hope; no outlook-but to perish.

So resistless seemed the water that he began to doubt for the old elm itself. It quivered wofully from time to time. The mere fact of being helpless there, of simply sitting and looking at the curling eddies below, and the blank lake around, at last began to work upon the boy's nerves. The monotony was torture. He felt that he must do something, or go mad. At first he busied himself about the platform, setting their small stores in order, arranging and re-arranging a dozen times. Then, growing weary of this, he looked down towards the house, and began to consider if it were possible to make one or two more journeys there, to save the bedding and the furniture. For if only he dared to venture, he saw that much of the household stuff might be hung or tied to the branches of the elm. Izah and Jennie would be able to pull some of it up to the platform, if only he went across and descended into the building. It was worth trying.

But, on second thoughts, no; it was not worth the risk. At any moment the house, already shattered and rocking, might be swept wholly away. And if he should chance to be on it at the time, who would look after the little girls? There was nothing for it but to sit mournfully and watch. Indeed, it began. to dawn upon him that, for his life, he could not cross that branch again.

Instead, to employ himself, he proposed to the little ones that they should continue telling the stories that they broke off last night when they went to bed. And Izah and Jennie being too frightened to tell any coherently, he invented a wonderful tale, mixing it up with the story of Noah and the Ark, of a terrific flood, and a family that had taken shelter in a tree, and tied themselves there like "ponies picketed out to grass," and all their adventures, and how the father and mother of the family came at last in boats and rescued the little ones. And desperately through a whole hour he dragged the story out, to cheat his companions of their present terror, and only stopped at length to suggest that he was hungry, and they might as well eat; and, as they were housekeeping on their own account now, Izah should be cook, and Jennie parlourmaid; and then again dragged out the meal to an unconscionable length, while all the time his own heart kept sinking lower and lower.

And so long did the meal continue, that by the end the girls had eaten quite a large amount, notwithstanding their desperate plight, and rose to “wash away" (ominous term!) with quite a glow of courage in their little hearts.

And the long morning passed, and the longer afternoon drew towards sun

down. By this time the waters had crept to the top of the second-floor windows of the house, and were still rising. Yet the house stood. And the ponderous lumps of ice kept pounding and crashing at the tree. Yet that, too, stood; and, though it nodded with each blow, never cracked.

Once they thought they heard the sounds of shouting, far away. Henry strained his ears, but could make nothing of it. Night drew on; he wrapped the blankets around his sisters, and lay down on the boards again to watch— to watch with all his eyes during the short half-hour that was yet to elapse before darkness should cover the face of the earth.

Still he saw water-nothing but water: saw no boat, nor heard any shouting. Night came without succour. And now there was blackness all around, and the sound of the water-monotonous, cruel, insatiable-eternally in his ears. The girls had cried themselves to sleep, their heads resting on their brother's knees. The boy could not close an eye; and so through the night, as through the greater part of the day, he sat listening to the roar around, bending his ear to catch the steady breathing of Izah or Jennie, and hoping on, against hope.

Soon after dark he heard a crash below him, louder than any before. The foundations of the house had given way at last. In the glimmering darkness he saw the whole building melt away, and vanish headlong down the stream.

Then came Egyptian gloom for hours, and at last, with a premonitory chill, the cold bleak paling of the dawn. As the sky passed slowly through the innumerable shades that divide black from grey, and grey from blue, Henry saw of all the old familiar landmarks not one, except the tree-tops. Even of the trees, many smaller ones had been crushed and broken by the masses of ice. Their downfall, one by one, had broken the night into intervals as a city clock chiming the hours.

The little girls opened their eyes. They had been dreaming; were again, in imagination, in the cosy room that now had vanished for good and all. They awoke, expecting to see again the familiar furniture, the well-known pictures and texts on the wall. a bitter moment as the truth broke on them.

It was

The boy bent down, haggard and desperate himself, to cheer them and wipe their tears away.

It was the sound of shouting. Or was it a trick of the fancy? No, indeed, it was no trick; for now, peering between the tree-tops, the boy could spy a boat cautiously picking its way towards them among the floating logs and ice-cakes. There were half a dozen forms in the boat, and, yes, there was Rudolph, standing up in the bows, waving to them. The boy stood up, waving a blanket madly in reply; and then, sinking upon the platform, broke into that flood of weeping which now for twenty-four hours he had repressed. The neighbours had seen them the day before-had shouted-and had

F

worked for many hours, without success, to get a boat across to them amid the floating ice. In the morning, looking out, they had, to their great joy, seen that the small trio were still safe and sound upon the platform. By this time the ice-cakes, the logs, and drifting trees were fewer. The rescuers put off with better hope.

Within an hour the plucky boy and his two sisters were safe within the boat, and moving slowly, but cautiously, towards firm ground.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, knowing nothing of the flood, had lengthened their absence till the evening of the same day; nor did they know anything of their children's peril till they found the three, safe and well, in the house of a hospitable friend.

31

A LEAP FOR LIFE.

N the August of 1854 I quitted the mounted police force of Victoria, and entered that of New South Wales. I do not know why I took this step; perhaps it was that yearning after "fresh fields and pastures new" which seems to be an instinct of human nature. Anyhow, one bright spring morning I found myself on board the steamship Illawarra, clearing the calm blue waters of Hobson's Bay (the largest harbour in the known world), with Queen's Cliff and Point Nepean some three miles ahead, and beyond them the snow-crested waves of Bass's Straits.

I shall not inflict upon my readers a narrative of my voyage, which, if barren in incident, was full enough of discomfort and misery. I was a second-cabin passenger, and the sea was so rough during the entire voyage that after tumbling into my bunk when off Cape Patterson, I never emerged from it until, forty-five hours later, we entered Port Jackson Bay, and consequently were in calm water.

It was about six o'clock in the evening when I landed at Sydney. I immediately hastened to report myself at headquarters, where the letters of introduction and commendation from the officers of the Victorian force, of which I was the bearer, had due weight. I was politely requested to attend the following morning at ten o'clock, in order to be sworn in. This I accordingly did; the ceremony was duly performed, and I retired to the barracks to don my new uniform and hold myself ready for orders.

I was destined not to have a long stay in Sydney, for the very morning following my admission into the force I was ordered for out-station duty, and received instructions to start at once, in company with another trooper younger than myself, for a place called Dunewatha, which lay at some distance on the other side of the Blue Mountains, and was a good three days' journey from the metropolis.

It was nine a.m. when we received our orders, and by eleven we were in the saddle and descending Elizabeth Street at a trot. We turned round Hyde Park Corner into Paramatta Street, and in another quarter of an hour the straggling suburbs of the city were left in our rear.

It was a most unpleasant day. A regular brickfielder was blowing, and even before we had cleared the town our white shako-covers and snowy buckskin breeches were powdered thickly with reddish dust, which the furious

* Hot wind.