"Once a month," continued Parker, whilst I was tugging at the knot, "these millionaires meet secretly in the back parlour in a public-house out Shadwell way, and have a feed o' tripe and onions, or pigs' trotters or chitlings or faggots, or stewed eels or fried fish, or something of that sort, and drink four half out of pint pots, and smoke shag tobacco in clay pipes, and play shove-ha'penny and pitch-and-toss for coppers. It's coming off to-night, this Crœsus bean-feast and blow-out, as the Dumpling calls it; and he's planned to kidnap one of 'em on their way home, and make him pay a thumping big sum for ransom money. The place was to be---- Hi! Look out, there! There's a big ship coming out of the fog just behind you. My God! She's on us. And me tied up like this! Let me loose, for Christ's sake! It's murder. It's----" Simultaneously with a sudden crash--under the impact of which the boat seemed to shiver like a live thing--the blurred fog-blinded lights on the river banks broke into zigzagging globes of yellow light that shot backwards and forwards, upward and downward and sideways before my eyes, as gnats dart and dance and dodge among themselves on a summer eve. Then these lights all ran together into a streak of yellow fire. The boat seemed to leap forward and to rise under us, as a horse which has staggered to its knees, when hit by a bullet, strives to struggle forward and to its feet under its rider; and the next instant the frail craft went to pieces and fell away from under us. In that instant I saw the ghastly face of Parker staring up horror-stricken at what looked like the high and perpendicular side of a house which was about to fall upon us, and that, in the act of overtoppling, seemed momentarily to hang and hover and brood gloatingly above our head. Then there came the deadly and numbing chill of ice-cold and rushing water that sucked us down and under, as if to the falling house's very foundations. CHAPTER VII. I AM SNUBBED BY SCOTLAND YARD.