I leaned over the bank and cried that I was there, but she never stopped—it was terrible. Finally I made a slip-noose and actually managed to fling it over his head—Roger had taught me to do that at school, twenty years ago—and that stopped her, hitting against her cheek, and she opened her eyes.
"Put it under his arms, can you?" I cried, and after several efforts, for she was nearly frozen stiff, the brave, clever creature did, and I got it around a tree on the edge. Then I stopped, panting, for I realised that I could do no more. The run had taken all the strength out of me—I couldn't have dragged a cat—and she was little more than a foot below me!
I can't write about it. My arms ache now, just as my infernal shoulders ached with that paralysing, numb ache then.
"Listen!" I cried, for she had begun to scream again, "listen, Margarita, or I will beat you! Is he unconscious?"
She nodded.
"Can you hold on five minutes, with his weight gone?"
She blinked in a sort of stupid assent.
"Could you for ten? Are you braced solid?"
Again she blinked, and with an inspiration I plunged my shaking hand into my great-coat pocket and pulled out a brandy-flask. Miss Jencks had taken it from the sideboard.
I tied it into my handkerchief, opened, and swung it down to her, and she got her lips around it and coughed it down. It acted instantly and she could move a little, and while I encouraged her, and after several heartrending failures, which nearly spilled all the brandy, she got it into his mouth between his teeth, as his big body swung in the noose. It ran over his chin and down his neck, but a little got in, and his eyelids quivered. Soon he coughed, and I dared not wait another second.