He was not startled.

It seemed to him that he had been through something of this sort before.

There was nothing horrible about it.
This, too, was life, and life was activity, just as it was in Boston or in London.

He was himself, and there was something to be done; everything seemed perfectly natural.

Alexander was a strong swimmer, but he had gone scarcely a dozen strokes when the bridge itself, which had been settling faster and faster, crashed into the water behind him.
Immediately the river was full of drowning men.