Instinctively Dudley obeyed, stepping back into the little patch of light thrown by the candle.
He had scarcely reached the middle of the room when he felt the boards under his feet give way. Staggering, he tried to retrace his steps, to reach the end of the room where the old woman, now again on a level with him, was watching him in silence.
But as he moved towards her she made a spring at him, and forcing him back with so much suddenness that he, quite unprepared, was unable to resist her attack, she flung him to the ground in the very middle of the room.
As he fell he felt the flooring give way under him. The next moment he was struggling, like a rat in a well, in deep water.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PREY OF THE RIVER.
"Help! Help!" shouted Dudley. "Do you want to drown me?"
Great as the shock was of finding himself flung suddenly into what he supposed was a flooded cellar, Dudley did not at first believe that the old woman had any worse intention than that of playing him an ugly and malicious trick.
But as he uttered this question he looked up, and saw her face half a dozen feet above him, wearing an expression of fiendish malignity which froze his blood.