Gorlias threw himself desperately against the three men, with outstretched arms, hoping to sweep them altogether into the water from a place where they had so little foothold. The woman held her breath. One of the three men, active as a monkey, dodged past the astrologer, caught the knotted rope, and began climbing it. The other two fell, their feet entangled in the line-rove through the tail-block, and with the strong man's weight behind them they tumbled headlong down the incline. With a heavy splash, and scarcely more than one for all three, Gorlias and his opponents fell into the water.
There was silence then, while the other man climbed higher and higher.
The woman watched in horror. In falling, the men had struck against the stem of the skiff, dragging the painter from the peg. The other boat was not moored at all, and both were now adrift on the sluggish stream. The woman steadied herself, and tried to see.
The man climbed fast, and above him the dark figure moved quickly upwards. But Zeno's pursuer was fresher than he, and as quick as a cat, and gained on him. If he caught him, he might crook his leg round the knotted rope to drag Zeno down and hurl him to the ground.
Still he gained, while the boats began to drift, but still the woman could make out both figures, nearer and nearer to each other. Now there were not ten feet between them.
A faint cry was heard, a heavy thud on the stones, and silence again. Zeno had cut the rope below him. The woman drew a sharp breath between her closed teeth. There was no noise, now, for the man that had been as active as a cat was dead.
But an instant later one of the other three was out of the water, and on the edge of the pier, panting for breath.
The woman took up one of the oars, and tried to paddle with it. She thought that the man who had come up must be Gorlias, and that the other two were drowned, and she tried to get the boat to the pier again; she had never held an oar in her life, and she was trembling now. High in mid-air Zeno was hanging on what was left of the rope, slowly working his way upwards, fully fifty feet above the base of the tower.
The skiff bumped against the other boat alongside, and the woman began to despair of getting nearer to the land, and tried to shove the empty boat away with her hands. The effect was to push her own skiff towards the pier, for the other was much the heavier of the two. Then, paddling a little, she made a little way. The man ashore seemed to be examining the body of the one who had been killed; it lay sprawling on the stones, the head smashed. The living one was not Gorlias; the woman could see his outline now. She was strong, and with the one oar shoved her skiff still farther from the other boat, and nearer to the pier. The man heard her, got upon his feet, and slipped down to the water's edge again.
'Hold out the end of the oar to me,' he said, 'and I will pull the boat in.'