It was some minutes before the lock-keeper answered to our ringing calls, and then the sluices had to be raised and the lock filled from our side. The clash and thunder of the hidden water as it fell into the pit below sounded dismal enough in the darkness, and must, I knew, be dinning fresh terror into the heart of our already stricken naiad. But the hollow noise died off in due course, the creaking gate lumbered open and we floated with a sigh of relief into the weltering pool beyond.
The sluices rattled down behind us, the keeper walked round to the further gate, and his figure appeared standing out against the sky, toiling with bent back at the levers. Suddenly I, who had been pulling bow, felt myself tilting over in a curious manner.
“Hullo!” I cried. “What’s up with the boat?”
In one moment I heard a loud shout come from the man at the gates, and saw Dolly, despite her warning, stand hurriedly up and Duke make a wild clutch at her; the next, the skiff reeled under me and I was spun, kicking and struggling, into the water.
An accident, common enough and bad enough to those who know little of Thames craft, had befallen us. We had got the boat’s stern jammed upon a side beam of the lock, so that her nose only dropped with the sinking water.
I rose at once in a black swirl. The skiff, jerked free by our unceremonious exit, floated unharmed in the lock, but she floated empty. Risen to the surface, however, almost with me, Duke’s dark head emerged close by her, so that with one frantic leap upward he was able to reach her thwarts, to which he clung.
“Dolly!” he gasped—“Dolly!”
I had seen her before he could cry out again, had seized and was struggling with her.
“Don’t hold me!” I cried; “let me go, Dolly, and I’ll save you.”
She was quite beyond reason, deaf to anything but the despairing call of life. In another instant, I knew, we should both go under and be dragged into the rush of the sluices. Seeing the uselessness of trying to unclasp her hands, I fought to throw myself and her toward the side of the lock nearest. The water was bubbling in my mouth, when I felt a great iron hook whipped into the collar of my coat and we were both hauled to the side.