It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which was not in tune with the beauty of the morning.
“Ah!”
It came from his throat like the groan of a trapped and wounded lion. George Masson had almost finished his inspection, when he heard a noise behind him. He turned and looked back. There stood Jean Jacques with his hand on the lever. The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot ladder being dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of the flume.
“Ah! Nom de Dieu!” George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury and with horror in his eyes.
By instinct he understood that Carmen’s husband knew all. He realized what Jean Jacques meant to do. He knew that the lever locking the mill-wheel had been opened, and that Jean Jacques had his hand on the lever which raised the gate of the flume.
By instinct—for there was no time for thought—he did the only thing which could help him, he made a swift gesture to Jean Jacques, a gesture that bade him wait. Time was his only friend in this—one minute, two minutes, three minutes, anything. For if the gates were opened, he would be swept into the millwheel, and there would be the end—the everlasting end.
“Wait!” he called out after his gesture. “One second!”
He ran forward till he was about thirty feet from Jean Jacques standing there above him, with the set face and the dark malicious, half-insane eyes. Even in his fear and ghastly anxiety, the subconscious mind of George Masson was saying, “He looks like the Baron of Beaugard—like the Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife.”
It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor Cartier. “Wait—but wait one minute!” exclaimed George Masson; and now, all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at work again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gained one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no one could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on the lever—one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It was so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume!
“Why should I wait, devil and rogue?” The words came from Jean Jacques’ lips with a snarl. “I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to whine—cochon!”