"Stay where you are," he shouted. "Treacherous ground! I'll come and help you!" Then for a second he peered intently under his hand. "Ah! It is you, monsieur—the newcomer; I might have guessed it." He laughed, leaping out and striding toward me. "Ah, you Americans! You do not mind the weather."
"Bonjour, Monsieur le Curé," I shouted back in astonishment, trying to steady myself across a narrow bridge of mud spanning the causeway.
"Look out!" he cried. "That mud you're on is dangerous. She's sinking!"
It was too late; my right foot barely made another step before down I went, gun, shells, and all, up to my chin in ice-cold water. The next instant he had me by the collar of my leather coat in a grip of steel, and I was hauled out, dripping and draining, on the bank.
"I'm all right," I sputtered.
"Come inside instantly," he said.
"Inside? Inside where?" I asked.
He pointed to the hump.
"You must get your wet things off and into bed at once." This came as a command.
"Bed! Where? Whose bed?" Was he an Aladdin with a magic lamp, that could summon comfort in that desolation? "Monsieur," I choked, "I owe you a thousand apologies. I came near killing one of your nine decoys. I mistook them for wild mallards."