As his antagonist fell heavily to the floor, the force of the impact shaking the crazy, ruinous superstructure of the boat with a sinister menace, Floyd-Rosney’s first emotion was the stirring of the impulse of self-preservation. Not one moment was wasted in indecision. He stepped deftly across the prostrate body, wrenched the door open with a violent effort and with satisfaction heard the dislocated spring slam it noisily behind him. There the corpse would lie indefinitely, unless, indeed, the man whom Ducie had professed to seek should come to keep an appointment; probably he had already been here, and had gone, for the mustering splendors of the evening sky betokened how the hours wore on to sunset. As Floyd-Rosney took his way with a swift, sure step to the stair where his boat still struggled at the end of the painter attached to the post, he noted that Ducie had followed his example and secured his own skiff in like manner. A sudden monition of precaution occurred to Floyd-Rosney even in his precipitation, and in loosing his own craft he set the other adrift, reflecting that to leave it here was to advertise the presence of its owner aboard the _Cherokee Rose_; the current, sweeping as if impelled by some tremendous artificial force as of steam or electricity, set strongly toward the shore, and the boat, swiftly gliding on the ripples, would ultimately ground itself on the bank, affording evidence that Ducie had landed. As without an instant’s hesitation he busied himself in putting his plan into execution he did not think once of the powerful lenses of the binocle of the skipper, at watch for his return on the bow of the beautiful _Aglaia_, lying there in the bend of the river, not two miles away, like a swan on the water, between the radiant evening sky, and the irradiated stream, reflecting her white breast as she floated, a vision suspended in soft splendors. He had a momentary doubt of the wisdom of his course, as he took up his oars, and the possibility of this observation occurred to him. Then he endeavored to reassure himself. It was the only practicable procedure, he argued. He took the chance of being unobserved, while otherwise the boat, swinging at the stairway, would unavoidably excite curiosity and allure investigation. Still, he would have preferred to have had that possibility in mind, before taking incriminating action,--to have had his course a matter of choice instead of making the best of it.