Just then the boat touched at a mouldering flight of stairs, crusted with green ooze to high-water mark, and covered now with snow. She made fast the boat.
"This was the way he went," she muttered. "Track him, track him to his death; spare him no single pang to make that death miserable!" Her low voice positively trembled with concentrated hate. "Stay," she said, "have you money?"
I suddenly remembered that I had given all the money on me to Bagnell for getting out my boat, and told her so. At the same moment, too, I thought upon the tin box still lying under the boat's stern. I stepped aft and pulled it out.
"Here is money," she said; "money that I was to have given him. Fifty pounds it is, in notes—take it all."
"But you?" I hesitated.
"Never mind me. Take it—take it all. What do I want with money if only you kill him?"
I bent and kissed her hand.
"As Heaven is my witness," I said, "it shall be his life or mine. The soul of one of us shall never see to-morrow."
Her hand was as cold as ice, and her pale face never changed.
"Kill him!" she said, simply.