Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/233

 faith, I think ye do lie an ye tell me ye hid a boat here i' the grass!"

"Have a care, sir! No one dubs me liar and lives!"

"Well, 'tis not here—ye agreed to have the boat ready, Crane! Where is it?"

"I tell ye, Captain Stockton, I did conceal it here!"

"Nay!"

"Aye!"

As the two exclamations mingled, there was a snarl, the thump of dropped burdens, and before Sally or Zenas could do more than draw excited breaths, there had commenced a vicious struggle in the darkness beneath them! At last there was the clank of steel upon steel!

"Ye will—ye cowardly knave! Draw thy hunting knife, will ye?"

"Ye skulker i' the dark—take that! And that!"

And now came a dreadful groan, the sound of someone falling, the further sound of a hurried plunge into the river—then someone swam away!

Sally, too horrified to move at first, lay where she had crept. Then, "Zenas!" she whispered, between stiff lips. "Zenas!"

"Aye, Sally?" Scarcely less horrified, his voice came to her from near by.

Sally gulped. "Think ye—think ye—the man be—be dead!" she stammered.