But when he saw me clear of the groping man, he turned and dashed after Viney; while from the bar-parlour I heard a curse and a crash of broken glass. I vaguely wondered if Viney's confederate were smashing windows in the partition; and then I ran my hardest after Grandfather Nat. Viney had made up the street toward the bridge and Ratcliff Highway, and Captain Nat pursued with shouts of "Stop him!" Breathless and unsteady, I made slow progress with my smaller legs over the rough cobble-stones, which twisted my feet all ways as I ran. But I was conscious of a gathering of other cries ahead, and I struggled on, with throbbing head and bursting heart. Plainly there were more shouts as I neared the corner, and a running of more men than two. And when the corner was turned, and the bridge and the lock before me, I saw that the chase was over. Three bull's-eye lanterns were flashing to and fro, pointing their long rays down on the black dock-water, and the policemen who directed them were calling to dockmen on the dark quay, who cried back, and ran, and called again. "Man in!" cried one and another, hurrying in from the Highway. "Fell off the lock." "No, he cut his lucky, an' headered in!" "He didn't, I tell ye!" "Yes, he did! Why, I see 'im!" I could not see my grandfather; and for a moment my thumping heart stood still and sick with the fear that it was he who was drowning in the dock. Then a policeman swung his lantern across to the opposite side, and in the passing flash Grandfather Nat's figure stood hard and clear for an instant and no more. He was standing midway on the lock, staring and panting, and leaning on a stanchion. With a dozen risks of being knocked into the dock by excited onlookers, I scrambled down to the lock and seized the first stanchion. It creaked and tottered in my hand, but I went forward, gripping at the swaying chain and keeping foothold on the slippery, uneven timbers I knew not how. Sometimes the sagging chain would give till I felt myself pitching headlong, only to be saved by the check of the stanchion against the side of the socket; and once the chain hung so low, where it had slipped through the next stanchion-eye, that I had no choice but to let go, and plunged in the dark for the next upright--it might have been to plunge into space. "Grandfather Nat! Grandfather Nat!" I reached him somehow at last, and caught tight at his wrist. He was leaning on the stanchion still, and staring at the dark water. "Here I am, grandfather," I said, "but I am frightened. Stay with me, please!" For a little while he still peered into the gloom. Then he turned and said quietly: "I've lost him, Stevy. He went over--here."