It was inevitable, however, nor could he do more to prevent others coming. So he had been on his way back to his own house for a few hours' rest when the dreamy splash of the water made him pause to lean over the hand-rail and listen to it, as he finished his cigar in the open. Then it was that he heard a faint tap, tapping, as of a ghostly hand on a door. What was it? It was quite distinct, though almost as low as the "_lip, lipping_" of the water, made restless by that glassy curve against the gates. A curiosity to know seized on him. There was already a glimmer of dawn in the east; he might as well wait and see. It was not long before a streak of something faintly white made him call himself a fool. The cause was a log of wood. He might have thought of that. Even that faint setting of a stream towards a new way must have drifted it here. The thought made him frown, for this fulfilment of the river-people's prophecy was annoying; the more so from its absolute unlikelihood. Years might pass without such a chance coming again; yet it had come the very first day! It was too bad. The stars in their courses were fighting against him. In a pet he threw the remains of his cigar from him, and was striding off, when a faint glimmer, as of a candle, made him turn sharply and look down whence it came. The lighted end of his cigar had fallen on something dry, inflammable, which had blazed up. But it was only for a second; the next found darkness, save for that still, faint, glimmer of white. But the brief gleam had told him it was not a log which had drifted astray-- It was a corpse. That _tap, tapping_ he had heard had been from the dead feet seeking vainly to pass through the chink of the sluice, swerving with the side current, coming back, again and again. He stood, grasping the rail, staring down at the dim outline almost incredulously, and feeling, despite himself, a trifle shivery. Then the remembrance that this was a thing which must be seen by none, which somehow, and as quickly as possible, must be set on its right road again, made him hurry back to where he knew some coils of rope, which had been used for bunting at the ceremony, were lying. Seizing one--still gaily decorated--he tied a brick to one end, and hurried back to the bridge. By dropping this weighted rope over the dim white streak he was able to edge it gradually to one side, until it lay moored against the wall of the basin. Kneeling down for a closer look, he could see, in the fast-growing light, that it was the corpse of a woman. He could even guess the death she died, and if proof was needed, it could be found in the hands folded at full stretch down the body; the thumbs, pointing upward, linked by an iron ring. To this iron ring had been looped a little tuft of the tri-coloured hank of cotton which plays so large a part in marriage ceremonial. Dr. Dillon stood up and swore under his breath.