"But while he was speaking, never for an instant did his hold relax upon the girl's arm, though she writhed under his grasp.
"I hesitated a moment, and he turned to me with the look of a fiend on his dark, handsome face.
"'I said you might go,' he repeated.
"'I will double that sum if you know how to keep your tongue still,' the man said, thrusting another bill into my hand.
"As I pushed out into midstream the girl grew frantic. With an almost superhuman effort she succeeded in removing the woolen scarf which had been wound so tightly about her mouth, then with a cry which I shall never forget while life lasts, she shrieked out piteously, as she threw out her white arms wildly toward me:
"'Help! help! Oh! help, for the love of Heaven! Don't desert me! Come back! oh, come back and save me!'
"The blood fairly stood still in my veins. Her companion hurled her back so quickly that she completely lost her balance, and fell fainting in his arms.
"'Go!' he cried, angrily, 'and not one word of what you have seen or heard!'
"I can not desert a lady in distress, sir,' I answered.
"With a fury such as I have never seen equaled, he turned and faced me in the moonlight.