Now crawling into the fore part of the boat, he slipped his hand between the matting and the gunwale, and cautiously cut through the mooring-rope. It fell into the water with a dull splash; fortunately the vessel was so low built that the rope had only a foot or two to fall. Waiting until the unbroken silence without assured him that the old woman had not taken alarm, he crept back again towards the stern, lowered himself into the water as silently as he had raised himself before, and began to haul very gently. The shore was soft, so that the movement of the keel over it made no sound; on the other hand, the soil clung to the keel, and to move the vessel required more force than Errington expected. But it slid inch by inch towards the water, and might have floated in absolute silence had Errington been able to see what he was doing. But just at the critical moment, when the most minute care was needed, he pulled a little harder than he should have done, and the bow dropped into the water with a splash. Errington, hidden behind the stern, did not see the little contretemps which might have provoked a smile from Lo San, if he had had any sense of humour, and had not been quaking with fright. At the splash the old woman looked up from her cooking, in the direction of the waterway through which the sampans had come. Seeing nothing there, she muttered a malediction, and was turning to her stove again, when she happened to notice that the mat-covered craft a few yards away was floating free, and that the mooring-rope lay on the shore. Without any suspicion other than that the vessel had somehow worked loose, she dropped the fish she had been preparing, and hobbled down the shore with the intention of tying the boat up again. Quickening her steps as she saw that it was moving away, she leant forward to clutch it, missed her footing, and plunged headlong into the water with a stifled scream. Hitherto Errington had carefully kept out of sight; but at the double sound of scream and splash he could not refrain from peeping round the side of the boat. The old woman was floundering in the effort to regain her feet. The water was no more than three feet deep, but the bottom was muddy, and the woman, scared by what was probably the first immersion of her life, could not stand up, but was still on hands and knees, only her head showing. Errington had never heard such screaming. Fearing that the old creature would be drowned, he rushed forward in his impulsive way to help her. His chivalry deserved a better reward. The old crone, as soon as she saw him, let out a series of even more piercing shrieks than before, and, finding her feet at last, scrambled ashore, and with a limping trot like that of an aged cab-horse, fled towards the huts. "Fan-kwei! Fan-kwei[#]!" she screamed, rubbing her wet face with her fishy fingers. [#] Foreign devil.