Even as he spoke the woman leaped into the air. There was a low scream, a splash, a leap of foam flashed dully for one instant, then all was still again.
The waterman plied his oars furiously. Hammond steered for the spot where that foam had splashed. An instant later the boat was over the place where the body had disappeared. Carter lay on his oars, and peered into the darkness on one side. Hammond strained his eye on the other side.
With startling suddenness a hand darted upwards within a foot of where Hammond sat in the stern of the boat. In the same instant the woman’s head appeared. Hammond reached out excitedly, and caught the back hair of the woman, twisting his fingers securely into the knot of hair at the back of her head.
Carter shipped his oars, and in two minutes the wretched woman was safe in the boat. Her drenched face gleamed white where they laid her. A low whimpering sob broke from her.
“Turn ’er over on her face a little, sir, while I makes the boat fast fur a minute or two, sir,” jerked out the waterman.
“Pore soul ov ’er!” he went on, knotting his painter to a bolt in the stern of a barge. “She ’ave took in a bellyful of Thames water, an’ it ain’t filtered no sort, that’s sartin!”
Hammond had by this time turned the woman over on her face.
Carter came aft bearing a water-beaker in his hands.
“I’ll lift her legs, sir,” he said, “and you put this beaker under her, jes’ above her knees; that’ll ’elp her a bit.”
That was done, and almost instantly the woman was very sick.