"Is it he?" thought Shears, with an almost painful anxiety.
And then the truth burst upon him:
"It is he! It is he! He alone is capable of sitting like that, without a tremor of uneasiness, without the least fear as to what will happen.... And who else could know the story of the picture-book? Alice must have told him by her messenger."
Suddenly, the Englishman felt that his hand, that his own hand, had seized the butt-end of his revolver and that his eyes were fixed on the man's back, just below the neck. One movement and the whole play was finished; a touch of the trigger and the life of the strange adventurer had come to a miserable end.
The angler did not stir.
Shears nervously gripped his weapon with a fierce longing to fire and have done with it and, at the same time, with horror of a deed against which his nature revolted. Death was certain. It would be over.
"Oh," he thought, "let him get up, let him defend himself.... If not, he will have only himself to blame.... Another second ... and I fire."
But a sound of footsteps made him turn his head and he saw Ganimard arrive, accompanied by the inspectors.
Then, changing his idea, he leapt forward, sprang at one bound into the boat, breaking the painter with the force of the jump, fell upon the man and held him in a close embrace. They both rolled to the bottom of the boat.
"Well?" cried Lupin, struggling. "And then? What does this prove? Suppose one of us reduces the other to impotence: what will he have gained? You will not know what to do with me nor I with you. We shall stay here like a couple of fools!"