austion, and answered with a feeble 'No.'

"He looked around for something to throw to the man. A plank had lain
there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and complaining of
its having been left there; he cursed himself now for his care.

"A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two hundred
yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there he might even
find a rope.

"'Just one minute, old fellow!' he shouted down, 'and I'll be back.'

"But the other did not hear him. The feeble struggles ceased. The face
fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary
indifference. There was no time for him to do more than kick off his
riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it sank.

"Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with Death
for the life that stood between him and the woman. He was not an expert
swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown with his long
race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the water rose slowly
enough to make his torture fit for Dante's hell.

"At first he could not understand why this was so, but in glancing down
he saw to his horror that he had not properly closed the lower sluices;
in each some eight or ten inches remained open, so that the stream was
passing out nearly half as fast as it came in. It would be another five-
and-twenty minutes before the water would be high enough for him to grasp
the top.

"He noted where the line of wet had reached to, on the smooth stone wall,
then looked again after what he thought must be a lapse of ten minutes,
and found it had risen half an inch, if that. Once or twice he shouted
for help, but the effort taxed severely his already failing breath, and
his voice only came back to him in a hundred echoes from his prison
walls.

"Inch by inch the line of wet crept up, but the spending of his strength
went on more swiftly. It seemed to him as if his inside were being
gripped and torn slowly out: his whole body cried out to him to let it
sink and lie in rest at the bottom.

"At length his unconscious burden opened its eyes and stared at him
stupidly, then closed them again with a sigh; a minute later opened them
once more, and looked long and hard at him.

"'Let me go,' he said, 'we shall both drown. You can manage by
yourself.'

"He made a feeble effort to release himself, but the other held him.

"'Keep still, you fool!' he hisse