"By Jove! They've freighted a splendid cutter, a regular man-of-war's boat, and they're rowing like anything! In five minutes they will board us and I shall be lost. Mr. Shears, let me give you one piece of advice: throw yourself upon me, tie me hand and foot and deliver me to the law of my country.... Does that suit you?... Unless we suffer shipwreck meanwhile, in which case there will be nothing for us to do but make our wills. What do you say?"
Their eyes met. This time, Shears understood Lupin's operations: he had made a hole in the bottom of the boat.
And the water was rising. It reached the soles of their boots. It covered their feet; they did not move.
It came above their ankles: the Englishman took his tobacco-pouch, rolled a cigarette and lit it.
Lupin continued:
"And, in all this, my dear maître, you must not see anything more than the humble confession of my powerlessness in face of you. It is tantamount to yielding to you, when I accept only those contests in which my victory is assured, in order to avoid those of which I shall not have selected the field. It is tantamount to recognizing that Holmlock Shears is the only enemy whom I fear and proclaiming my anxiety as long as Shears is not removed from my path. This, my dear maître, is what I wished to tell you, on this one occasion when fate has allowed me the honour of a conversation with you. I regret only one thing, which is that this conversation should take place while we are having a foot-bath ... a position lacking in dignity, I must confess.... And what was I saying?... A foot-bath!... A hip-bath rather!"
The water, in fact, had reached the seat on which they were sitting and the boat sank lower and lower in the water.
Shears sat imperturbable, his cigarette at his lips, apparently wrapped in contemplation of the sky. For nothing in the world, in the face of that man surrounded by dangers, hemmed in by the crowd, hunted down by a posse of police and yet always retaining his good humour, for nothing in the world would he have consented to display the least sign of agitation.
"What!" they both seemed to be saying. "Do people get excited about such trifles? Is it not a daily occurrence to get drowned in a river? Is this the sort of event that deserves to be noticed?"
And the one chattered and the other mused, while both concealed under the same mask of indifference the formidable clash of their respective prides.