"Ingerson—he's gone off his head!"
Without another word Van Dyck ran down to the shore and took the water in a clean dive. When he came up he was within arm's reach of the dipsomaniac. There was a fierce grapple and both men went under. My heart was in my mouth. I made sure the shark had taken one or the other of them. But the end was not yet. As I waded out armpit deep, splashing and making all the noise I could in the hope of scaring the great fish, two heads bobbed up a few yards away, and I saw that Bonteck had either choked or drowned the would-be suicide into submission and was swimming in with him.
A few quick strokes gave me my chance to help, and together we dragged Ingerson ashore. He was half-drowned and was otherwise little more than a bedraggled wreck of a man. While we were working over him, Van Dyck explained—briefly. Edith Van Tromp had told him that she had seen Ingerson creeping into the wood on all fours, with a knife in his hand, and he—Bonteck—had followed. All day he had been suspecting that Ingerson was on the edge of delirium.
"You'll have to give him some of the hair of the dog that bit him, or we'll have a frantic maniac in our midst," I said. "Is there any liquor left?"
"A little. Stay with him and I'll go and get it."
He was gone only a few minutes, and by the time he came back, Ingerson was able to sit up. We fed him brandy in small doses, and as the fiery stuff got in its work some degree of sanity returned. Apparently he knew quite well what he had tried to do, and was surlily regretful that the attempt had failed.
"You made a bonehead play, Van Dyck," he shivered. "I was trying to do a decent thing to wind up with, and you blocked it. You'd better have let me alone."
Van Dyck did not reply, and the drink maniac went on monotonously:
"I wanted to wind it up. Old John B.'s got me. I didn't believe it, but the last three days have shown me where I was heading in. As long as you can keep me half lit up . . . but you can't do that forever."