“Help! Help!” it cried. “Save me! Oh!”
“Catch hold of the stick. That’s right; now your hand. Well done! What’s holding you down? Have you got your foot entangled? That’s better: how did you fall in?”
As my uncle rapidly asked these questions he got hold of the man, and dragged him on to the stone edge of the dam, when there was a horrible clanking noise, the rattle of a chain, the man uttered a hideous yell, and as Piter set up a tremendous barking again I turned off the light.
“Here, don’t do that,” cried my uncle.
I hardly know what induced me to turn off the light, unless it was a shamefaced feeling on being, as I thought, found out. And yet it did not seem that I was the guilty party. Uncle Bob had said he had taken up the trap, and it was all right. He must have altered his mind and set it again.
“That’s better,” said my uncle as I turned on the light once more; and then Piter made such a struggle that I could not hold him. There was a bit of a scuffle, and he was free to rush at the man, upon whom he fixed himself as he lay there howling and dripping with water.
The man yelled again horribly, sprang up with Piter holding on to him; there was the same horrible clanking noise on the stones, and down he fell once more groaning.
“Help! Murder! Take away the dorg. Oh, help!” he cried.
“Good gracious! What is the matter?” cried Uncle Jack, telling me what I knew. “The man’s leg’s in a trap.”
He sprang up again, for by main force Uncle Jack had dragged Piter away with his mouth full of trouser leg; but there were only two clanks and a sprawl, for the poor wretch fell headlong again on the stones, praying for mercy.