Then something happened not at all romantic.
The flat began to leak.
In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge through which the water was literally pouring.
That sharp stake at the landing had torn off the strip of batting nailed on the flat.
Anne did not know this, but it did not take her long to realize that she was in a dangerous plight.
At this rate the flat would fill and sink long before it could drift to the lower headland.
Where were the oars?
Left behind at the landing!
Anne gave one gasping little scream which nobody ever heard; she was white to the lips, but she did not lose her self-possession.
There was one chance—just one.
“I was horribly frightened,” she told Mrs. Allan the next day, “and it seemed like years while the flat was drifting down to the bridge and the water rising in it every moment.
I prayed, Mrs. Allan, most earnestly, but I didn’t shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could save me was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for me to climb up on it.
You know the piles are just old tree trunks and there are lots of knots and old branch stubs on them.
It was proper to pray, but I had to do my part by watching out and right well I knew it.
I just said, ‘Dear God, please take the flat close to a pile and I’ll do the rest,’ over and over again.
Under such circumstances you don’t think much about making a flowery prayer.
But mine was answered, for the flat bumped right into a pile for a minute and I flung the scarf and the shawl over my shoulder and scrambled up on a big providential stub.
And there I was, Mrs. Allan, clinging to that slippery old pile with no way of getting up or down.
It was a very unromantic position, but I didn’t think about that at the time.
You don’t think much about romance when you have just escaped from a watery grave.
I said a grateful prayer at once and then I gave all my attention to holding on tight, for I knew I should probably have to depend on human aid to get back to dry land.”
The flat drifted under the bridge and then promptly sank in midstream.
Ruby, Jane, and Diana, already awaiting it on the lower headland, saw it disappear before their very eyes and had not a doubt but that Anne had gone down with it.
For a moment they stood still, white as sheets, frozen with horror at the tragedy; then, shrieking at the tops of their voices, they started on a frantic run up through the woods, never pausing as they crossed the main road to glance the way of the bridge.
Anne, clinging desperately to her precarious foothold, saw their flying forms and heard their shrieks.
Help would soon come, but meanwhile her position was a very uncomfortable one.
The minutes passed by, each seeming an hour to the unfortunate lily maid.
Why didn’t somebody come?
Where had the girls gone?
Suppose they had fainted, one and all!
Suppose nobody ever came!
Suppose she grew so tired and cramped that she could hold on no longer!
Anne looked at the wicked green depths below her, wavering with long, oily shadows, and shivered.
Her imagination began to suggest all manner of gruesome possibilities to her.
Then, just as she thought she really could not endure the ache in her arms and wrists another moment, Gilbert Blythe came rowing under the bridge in Harmon Andrews’s dory!
Gilbert glanced up and, much to his amazement, beheld a little white scornful face looking down upon him with big, frightened but also scornful gray eyes.
“Anne Shirley!
How on earth did you get there?” he exclaimed. Without waiting for an answer he pulled close to the pile and extended his hand.
There was no help for it; Anne, clinging to Gilbert Blythe’s hand, scrambled down into the dory, where she sat, drabbled and furious, in the stern with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe.
It was certainly extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances!
“What has happened, Anne?” asked Gilbert, taking up his oars.
“We were playing Elaine” explained Anne frigidly, without even looking at her rescuer, “and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge—I mean the flat.
The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile.
The girls went for help.
Will you be kind enough to row me to the landing?”
Gilbert obligingly rowed to the landing and Anne, disdaining assistance, sprang nimbly on shore.
“I’m very much obliged to you,” she said haughtily as she turned away.
But Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand on her arm.
“Anne,” he said hurriedly, “look here.
Can’t we be good friends?