striking a match and looking at my watch.

It was nearly two o'clock, and before the minute was up I heard
distinctly a cry, as if from some great distance, of "Lock, lock, lock!"
and then all was silence again.

"Did you hear it, sir?" whispered the old man, clutching me by the arm
with a trembling hand.

"Yes, I heard it," I said. "Don't you be frightened, Jimmy; just wait
till I get my clothes on; I am going to see this thing through."

"Be careful, sir; for God's sake, be careful," he whispered.

"All right," I said, slipping on some things. "Just get me a good
strong boat-hook, and don't make too much noise. If this mystery is
flesh and blood I'll get to the bottom of it somehow. You stay here; and
if I call, come out."

I took the thick, short boat-hook which he had brought me and, softly
unlatching the door, went out.

The moon was now riding high overhead and casting black fantastic
shadows across the little white cottage. All my senses were on the
keenest alert, my ears were pricked up for the slightest sound. I crept
softly to the bridge on the upper gate which was open. I looked up
stream and thought I could see some little ripples on the surface of the
water as if a swift boat had just passed down, but there was no sign of
any craft whatever to be seen. It was intensely still, and no sound
broke the silence save the intermittent croaking of some bull-frogs in
the dark shadows of the pollards on the further bank. Behind me could
also be heard the gurgling twinkle of the overflow through the chinks of
the lower gate.

I stood quite still, gripping the boat-hook in my hand, and looking
right and left, straining my eyes for the slightest movement of anything
around, when suddenly, close below me from the water, inside the lock,
came a loud cry--

"Open the lock, for God's sake, open the lock!"

I started back, feeling my hair rise and stiffen. The sound echoed and
reverberated through the silent night, and then died away; but before it
had done so I had sprung to the great beam and closed the upper gate. As
I did so I caught sight of the old man trembling and shaking at the door
of the cottage. I called to him to go and watch the upper gate, and,
racing down to the lower ones, wound up one of the sluices with a few
pulls, so as to let out the water with as little escape room as
possible. I knew by this means if there were any creature of tangible
form in the water we must find it when the lock was e