Suddenly Mac gave his thigh a prodigious slap. "I've struck it!" he
shouted, and pointing to a thick wire rope just visible in the moonlight
as it stretched across the river from flood bank to flood bank, added
hesitatingly: "We send mail-bags--and--valuables over on that when the
river's up."
It was impossible to mistake his meaning, or the Maluka's exclamation of
relief, or that neither man doubted for moment that the woman was willing
to be flung across deep, swirling river on a swaying wire; and as many a
man has appeared brave because he has lacked the courage to own to his
cowardice, so I said airily that "anything better than going back," and
found the men exchanging glances.
"No one's going back," the Maluka said quietly: and then I learned that
the Wet does not "do things by half." Once they began to move the flood
waters must have come down the valleys in tidal waves, the Maluka
explained. "The Cullen we've just left will probably be a roaring
torrent by now."
"We're stuck between two rivers: that's what's happened," Mac added
savagely.
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