Part 8 (1/2)

'What a huge fish leapt then!' said Lancelot carelessly; 'and close to the bridge, too!'

Honoria looked round, and uttered a piercing scream.

'Oh, my dog! my dog! Mops is in the river! That horrid gazelle has b.u.t.ted him in, and he'll be drowned!'

Alas! it was too true. There, a yard above the one open hatchway, through which the whole force of the stream was rus.h.i.+ng, was the unhappy Mops, alias Scratch, alias Dirty d.i.c.k, alias Jack Sheppard, paddling, and sneezing, and winking, his little bald muzzle turned piteously upward to the sky.

'He will be drowned!' quoth the colonel.

There was no doubt of it; and so Mops thought, as, s.h.i.+vering and whining, he plied every leg, while the gla.s.sy current dragged him back and back, and Honoria sobbed like a child.

The colonel lay down on the bridge, and caught at him: his arm was a foot too short. In a moment the huge form of Tregarva plunged solemnly into the water, with a splash like seven salmon, and Mops was jerked out over the colonel's head high and dry on to the bridge.

'You'll be drowned, at least!' shouted the colonel, with an oath of Uncle Toby's own.

Tregarva saw his danger, made one desperate bound upward, and missed the bridge. The colonel caught at him, tore off a piece of his collar--the calm, solemn face of the keeper flashed past beneath him, and disappeared through the roaring gate.

They rushed to the other side of the bridge--caught one glimpse of a dark body fleeting and roaring down the foam-way. The colonel leapt the bridge-rail like a deer, rushed out along the buck-stage, tore off his coat, and sprung headlong into the boiling pool, 'rejoicing in his might,' as old Homer would say.

Lancelot, forgetting his crutches, was das.h.i.+ng after him, when he felt a soft hand clutching at his arm.

'Lancelot! Mr. Smith!' cried Argemone. 'You shall not go! You are too ill--weak--'

'A fellow-creature's life!'

'What is his life to yours?' she cried, in a tone of deep pa.s.sion.

And then, imperiously, 'Stay here, I command you!'

The magnetic touch of her hand thrilled through his whole frame.

She had called him Lancelot! He shrank down, and stood spell-bound.

'Good heavens!' she cried; 'look at my sister!'

Out on the extremity of the buck-stage (how she got there neither they nor she ever knew) crouched Honoria, her face idiotic with terror, while she stared with bursting eyes into the foam. A shriek of disappointment rose from her lips, as in a moment the colonel's weather-worn head reappeared above, looking for all the world like an old gray s.h.i.+ny-painted seal.

'Poof! tally-ho! Poof! poof! Heave me a piece of wood, Lancelot, my boy!' And he disappeared again.

They looked round, there was not a loose bit near. Claude ran off towards the house. Lancelot, desperate, seized the bridge-rail, tore it off by sheer strength, and hurled it far into the pool.

Argemone saw it, and remembered it, like a true woman. Ay, be as Manichaean-sentimental as you will, fair ladies, physical prowess, that Eden-right of manhood, is sure to tell upon your hearts!

Again the colonel's grizzled head reappeared,--and, oh joy! beneath it a draggled knot of black curls. In another instant he had hold of the rail, and quietly floating down to the shallow, dragged the lifeless giant high and dry on a patch of gravel.

Honoria never spoke. She rose, walked quietly back along the beam, pa.s.sed Argemone and Lancelot without seeing them, and firmly but hurriedly led the way round the pool-side.

Before they arrived at the bank, the colonel had carried Tregarva to it. Lancelot and two or three workmen, whom his cries had attracted, lifted the body on to the meadow.

Honoria knelt quietly down on the gra.s.s, and watched, silent and motionless, the dead face, with her wide, awestruck eyes.