India 2001 books

"
And as he spoke he himself leapt into the water, and swam across.
Jacques made a plunge for the hat: had it been in the middle of the
Loire he would have gone after it under similar circumstances, though
he couldn't swim a stroke; he did not go near the hat however, but went
head over heels into the water; the impetus carried him through, and he
was the second to scramble upon the broken mortar on the other side. The
Chevalier was more active; he leapt in and seized the hat as it was
going down the stream, and swimming like a young duck, brought it back
to its owner.
"Ah! Chevalier," said Henri, reproaching him playfully, and helping him
up out of the water, "you have robbed some poor fellow of a chance; you,
you know, cannot be more my friend, than you already are."
The men quickly followed: they all got a ducking; some few lost their
arms, one or two were slightly wounded by their comrades, but none of
them were drowned. Henri soon made his way over the ruins into the town,
and carried everything before him.


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