Excerpt from The Toll of the River Not on me, old man. Beside me, Nick! Said his master when they met. Sometimes Nick had shown inclination to climb upon Maurice's chest or back for a rest, but Maurice of necessity had broken him of that. And now they swam side by side in the dark water, like brothers. Maurice could rest floating, but as Nick had not that advantage, being obliged to swim all the time, his master turned to the bank after going some distance and they climbed through the narrow shallows up on the terraced shore and Nick sat on his haunches panting between the knees of his master, both securely hidden from view above by the perpendicular mud terrace against which Maurice had set his back. There they watched the moonlight wavering on the water and listened to the cicalas shrilling over the land. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.