This was the Death Current of which Rufus had warned him only that afternoon.

Had not the bell-buoy been tolling to deaf ears for some time past?
The Death Current that came like a tidal wave! And nothing could live in it.

The girl--surely the girl had been washed off her ledge and overwhelmed in the flood before it had reached him.

Possibly Rufus would manage to save her, for that it was Rufus who had so savagely sprung upon him he had no doubt; but he himself was powerless.

If he saved his own life it would be by a miracle.