There was the faint whisper of a hoarse yell as the man fell back; Nic saw his hands clutching in the air, then he went backward into the boiling water, while the end of the pole was seen to rise above the surface for a moment or two, and then glide towards the bottom of the fall and disappear.
For the current, as it swung round the pool, set towards the falling water on the surface, and rushed outward far below.
Nic’s rage died out more quickly than it had risen, and he craned forward, white as ashes now, watching for the rising of his adversary out somewhere towards the other side; while, as if in triumphant mockery or delight at the danger having been removed, another huge salmon leaped up the fall.
Chapter Three.
A Game of Tit for Tat.
“I’d have pushed him in.”
Captain Revel’s threat flashed through his son’s brain as the young man stood staring wildly over the agitated waters of the pool, every moment fancying that he saw some portion of the man’s body rise to the surface; but only for it to prove a patch of the creamy froth churned up by the flood.
It was plain enough: the man had been sucked in under the falls, and the force of the falling water was keeping him down. He must have been beneath the surface for a full minute now—so it seemed to Nic; and, as he grew more hopeless moment by moment of seeing him rise, the young man’s blood seemed to chill with horror at the thought that he had in his rage destroyed another’s life.