With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into the smooth tunnel.
In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and in another moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.
Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurred boots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helping hand.
"I can make it," he gasped.
But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him in mid-lake.
Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presently she sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that his hands fell upon her shoulders.
He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden to such a swimmer. Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely through the chilled water, which washed his body to the nostrils and numbed his legs till he could scarcely move them.
And now, of a sudden, his feet touched gravel. He stumbled forward in the shadow of overhanging trees and saw her wading shoreward, a dripping, silvery shape on the shoal.
Then, as he staggered up to her, breathless, where she was standing on the pebbled shore, he saw her join both hands, cup-shape, and lift them to her lips.
And out of her mouth poured diamond, sapphire, and emerald in a dazzling stream, -- and among them, one great, flashing gem blazing in the starlight, -- the Flaming Jewel!
Like a naiad of the lake she stood, white, slim, silent, the heaped gems glittering in her snowy hands, her face framed by the curling masses of her wet hair.
Then, slowly she turned her head to Stormont.
"These are what Quintana came for," she said. "Could you put them into your pocket?"