‘I am interested in that sluice-gate,’ he said, with studied carelessness. ‘I will have a look at it.’
As he spoke, he dived easily to the bottom—the water was barely eight feet deep. Aguinaldo craned over to watch him. It was what Duckworth had hoped.
Bracing his feet firmly against the bottom, he crouched a moment; then with a spring and a tremendous down-stroke of the arms, he leaped upwards, half his height out of the water, and in an instant was gripping the edge of the tank with both hands.
Aguinaldo might have dislodged his hold. Instead, he dashed to the wheel and spun it round. For a moment the downward drag of the rushing water on Duckworth’s legs was sickening. Then the broad edge of the sluice-gate, heaved upwards by the Spaniard’s mad energy, came against his feet. It gave him just the required purchase for his toes. The Spanish devil had saved his life.
With a spring, Duckworth was on the edge. The next moment, Aguinaldo was swung from the ground and sent hurling through the air into the tank, and so came the horror of it.
Duckworth had determined that he should die, but in good set fashion, after trial. It was not to be. The escaping water seized the wretched man in its merciless grip, and whirled him to his death. Duckworth frantically tore at the wheel. He could not move it; it was locked by some device. He flung himself on the edge, if by chance he might catch the man’s hand. It was too late. There was a dreadful vision of staring eyes and wildly gripping hands—and the tank was empty.
Very white and shaken was Duckworth as he rode into camp to report himself, and Sir Edward Pakenham’s face was scarcely less white by the time the tale was told.
‘Major Duckworth!’ he said, at length. ‘You have disobeyed orders, but you have been dreadfully punished. On one condition will I overlook your fault. You will take a hundred men of your regiment, and you will report to me to-morrow morning that not one stone of that accursed place is left on another.’
Claude E. Benson.