And they waited in a breathless silence. There was something horrifying in the single splash, and then the stillness.
“Gad!” whispered Cornish. “Where is he?”
Roden struck a match, and held it inside his hat so as to form a sort of lantern, though the air was still enough. Cornish did the same, and they held the lights out over the water, throwing the feeble rays right across the canal.
“He cannot have swum away,” he said. “Von Holzen,” he cried out cautiously, after another pause—“Von Holzen—where are you?”
But there was no answer.
The surface of the canal was quite still and glassy in those parts that were not covered by the close-lying duck-weed. The water crept stealthily, slimily, towards the sea.
The two men held their breath and waited. Cornish was kneeling at the edge of the water, peering over.
“Where is he?” he repeated. “Gad! Roden, where is he?”
And Roden, in a hoarse voice, answered at length “He is in the mud at the bottom—head downwards.”