Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1891-02-25

~' VIII SWIM eloWly anu again
feel the side of the tank with my feet.
If | die must, let me perish at least
from well-directed though exhausting
effort, not sink from mere bootless
WEAKNESS in sustaining myself till the
morning shall bring relief.
''The sides of the place seemed to
grow higher as now kept my watery
course beneath them. 1t was not al
together dead pull. l had some
variety of emotion in making my cir
cult. When | swan in the shadow, it
looked TO me more cheerful beyond in
the moonlight. When / swan in the
moonlight, L had the hope of making
some discovery when l should again
reach the shadow. / turned several
times on my back to rest just where
those wavy lines woold meet. The
stars looked viciously light to me from
the bottom or that well: there was
such company of them; they were
so glad in their lustrous revelry; and
they had such space to move in! L
was alone, sad to despair in a strange
element, prisoned, and a solitary gazer
upon their chorus. And yet there was
nothing else with which l could hold
communionl
81 turned upon my breast and struck
out almost frantically once more. The
stars were forgotten; the moon, the
very world of which l as yet
formed part, my poor Mary herself,
were forgotten. L thought only of
the strong man there perishing; of
me, in my lusty manhood, in the sharp
vigor of my dawning prime, with
faculties illimitable, with senses all
alert battling there with physical obstac-
les which men like myself had brought
together for my undoing. The Etern-
al could have willed this thing! |
could not and l would not perish thus.
And l grew strong in insolence of self
trust; and laughed aloud as l dashed
the sluggish water aside.
Then came an emotion of pity for
myself,-of wild, wild regret; of sor-
row, oh, infinite, for fate 90 desolate,
a doom so dresry, so heart-sickening !!
You may laugh at the contradiction if
you will sir, but felt that 1 could sac
ritice my own life on the instant, to
redeem another fellow creature from
such place of horror, from an end
SO piteous. Ny soul and my vital
spirit seemed in that desperate moment
to be separating; while one in parting
grieved over the deplorable fate of
| the other.
"And then l prayedl l prayed,
why or wherefore l know not. 1t
was not fear. 1t could not have been
in hope. The days of miracles are
passed, and there was no natural law
by whose interposition l could be
saved. did not pray; it prayed of
itself, my soul within me.
"Was the cslmness that | now felt,
torpidity? the torpidity that precedes
dissolution, to the strong swimmer
who sinking from exhaustion, must at
last add bubble to the wave as he
suffocates beneath the element which
now denied his mastery? If it were
so, how fortunate was it that my float
ing rod at that moment attracted my
attention as it dashed through the
water by me. l saw on the instant
that fish had entangled himself in
the wire moose. The rod quivered,
plunged, came again to the surface,
and ippled the water as it shot in
arrowy flight from side to side of the
tank. At last driven toward the
southeast corner of the Reservoir, the
small end seemed to have got foul
somewhere. The brazen butt, which,
every time the fish sounded, was
thrown to the moon, now sank by its
own weight, showing that the other
end must be fast. But the cornered
fish, evidently anchored somewhere by
that short wire, foundered several
times to the surface, before l thought
of striking out to the spot.
"The water is low now, and toler-
ably clear. You may see the very ledge
there, air, in yondsr corner, on which
the small end Of my rod rested when
l secured that pike with my hands.
did not take him from the slip-noose,
however; but standing upon the ledge,
handled the rod in workmanlike man.
ner, as l flung that pound pickerel
over the iron railing upon the top of
the parapet. The rod, as 1 have told
you, barely reached from the railing
to the water. 1t was heavy, strong
bass rod, and when 1 discovered that
the fish at the end of the wire made a
strong enough knot to prevent me from
drawing my tackle away from the
railing around which it twined itself
as 1 threw, why, as you can at once
see, had but little difficulty in max
ing my way up the face of the wall
with such assistance.
"The ladder you see lashed to the
IRON railing, is in the identical spot
where thus made my escape; and
for fear of similar accidents, they have
placed another one in the correspond
ing corner Of the other compartment
Of the&ank, ever since my remarkable
nights adventure in the lonesome wat.
ers Of the Reservoir"