And I rowed, and rowed, and rowed, as fast as I could, and all the time the shouting and screaming went on, and at last what do you think I saw?
I saw a boat, which looked as if something was dragging it down into the water.

Part of it had already sunk down into the lake, and in the part which was still above the water there were three people sitting, a gentleman, and two little girls who looked about ten years old.

And they were shouting 'Help! help!' at the top of their voices, and waving an oar with a handkerchief tied to it.

And the boat in which they sat was sinking farther and farther into the water, and if I had'n't come up just when I did, the gentleman and the two little girls would have been drowned." "Oh, father!" cried Milly, "what made their boat do like that?
And did they get into yours ?" "There was a great hole in the bottom of their boat, Milly, and the water was coming through it, and making the boat so heavy that it was sinking down and down into the lake, just as a stone would sink if you threw it in.

How the hole came there we never quite knew: I thought they must have knocked their boat against a sharp rock--in some parts of the lake there are rocks under the water which you can't see--and the rock had made the hole; but other people thought it had happened in some other way.