Jeremy Fontaine De Neufchat Piedmont struggled for consciousness in a blaze of burning pain and black water; his arm was on fire and the murky river threatenmed momentarily to suffocate him. Instinctively he kicked madly in retreat from the churning sound of the sternwheel, and clawed unthinkingly for the surface, choppy and dark above him. He reached air, finally in a surge of his final energy, and drifted, washed over by the chopping waves, unaware of the receding lights of the ALbert. Struggling feebly, he drifted as the mother of all waters steered him, lapsing into unconsciousness at intervals, and groaning at the burning pain in his left arm.

Presently he felt a change in his motion, a hard object pushing under his unfeeling shoulders, and the lap of riverwater spraying off wood. He felt himself being drawn up, and prepareds to meet the angels he had always been told would attend him in his passing; but as he was born up, a glimmer of consciousness returned to his bruised form, and he found himself being supported not by winged creatures of divine light but by a ragged black boy, no older than himself, watched nervously by a youngster in torn denims like his own, and a wet straw hat.

"Yose gwineter be awright, Mistah", the black youth said quietly. "Youse with us now, we'se gwine ter look aftah evvyting..."

The other youth, a pale white face nearly lost under the corn-straw hat, nodded in agreement.

"Don't you worry none, Mister. Jim an' me, we'll fix you up jes' fine..."

Jeremy Piedmont turned half away on the crude log deck of what was no more than a mere raft, nodded his thanks to his worried and improbable angels of mercy, and went compeletely unconscious.