"I shouldn't wonder if it was Sanders," said Geoffrey. "Come to the lake, Jim. God forgive us for trying to rescue the devil! I wonder if he can swim?"
"Like a stone, sir, I hope," said Jim cheerfully.
The roar of the sluice was a guide to them, but they had lost each other twenty times before they reached the lake. In that dense and blinding mist, here risen high above their heads, even sound came muffled and uncertain, and it was through trampled flower beds and the swishing of shrubs against their faces that they gained the edge and stood on the foaming sluice. The water was very high, the noise bewildering to the senses; and yet, despite the fact that five minutes ago Geoffrey had been hesitating whether or not to shoot at that vague runner through the fog, caring nothing whether he killed him, yet now he did not hesitate to run a risk himself, in order to save from drowning what had been within an ace of being the mark for his bullet.
"He must be here," he said to Jim; "the pull of the water would drag him against the sluice."
"You're not going in after that vermin, Mr. Geoffrey?" asked Jim incredulously.
Geoffrey did not reply, but kicked off his boots and threw his coat on the grass.
"Stand by to give me a hand," he said, and plunged out of sight.
"Well, I'm damned!" said Jim, and took up his stand close to the edge of the water gate. The risk he had been willing to run for his master he had faced without question, indeed with a certain blitheness of spirit; but to bear a toothache for Sanders's life appeared to him a bargain that demanded consideration. But even as he wondered, a voice from close to his feet called him.
"Give a hand," bubbled Geoffrey from the water; "I've got him. I dived straight on to him."
Jim caught hold of Geoffrey first by the hair, and from that guided his grasp to a dripping shirt collar. Then, after Geoffrey had got a foothold on the steep bank, between them they dragged the nerveless and empty-handed figure from the water and laid it on the grass.