His stooping attitude, necessitated by the tremendous drag on his arms, prevented him even from looking freely behind him, and in trying to do so he nearly fell.

The strain he was suffering was so great that the least move caused him pain.
But by looking into the water he was able to see that this little stub of a limb might serve as a hook on which the machine might be hung if he could clear away the leafy twigs which grew from it, and if he could succeed in raising the cycle and slipping the wheel over it.

That would not end his predicament but it would save the machine, relieve him for a few moments, and give him time to think.
_For a few moments!_ They were fleeting by--the moments.
There is a strength born of desperation--a strength of will which is conjured into physical power in the last extremity.

It is when the frantic, baffled spirit calls aloud to rally every failing muscle and weakening nerve.

It is then that the lips tighten and the eyes become as steel, as the last reserves waiting in the entrenchments of the soul are summoned up to re-enforce the losing cause.
And there in that tree, on the brink of the heedless, rushing waters which crossed the highroad to Dieppe was going to be fought out one of the most desperate battles of the whole war.