"Help—help!" cried a voice, and then all was still as the grave for a few moments.
"It is done," said Todd.
"Help! mercy!" said a voice again, and a dark figure rose up by the side of the barge, clinging to it.
Todd drew one of his pistols. He levelled it at the head of the figure. He was upon the point of pulling the trigger, when it struck him that the flash and the report might be seen and heard from the shore. The pistol was heavily mounted with brass at the butt-end of it.
"Down!" said Todd. "Down!"
He struck the clambering, half-drowned man upon the head, and with a shriek he fell backwards into the water and disappeared. In another moment Todd felt a pair of arms twining round him, and a voice cried—
"Murderer, I have you now! You cannot shake me off!"
Todd made an effort, but, in truth, those wet and clinging arms held to him like fate.
"Fool," he said. "You will find drowning the easiest death for you to meet."
