Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers. Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous yell. Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily, listening. It had been enough. Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called: "Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had prepared the way. "Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered voice. The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well." "How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners." A few minutes elapsed before I was conscious of a movement in the water, slight, barely distinguishable. But my eyes had grown more and more accustomed to the darkness and I thought that I made out something coming toward the shore. Creeping a little forward and listening, I felt that it was Smilax carrying Sylvia, and became certain of this when someone was deposited there who began cautiously to climb the bank. Smilax, evidently, had turned back for Echochee. But along this section of the mainland the bank was steep, and the climber came with difficulty--once slipping and making what I thought to be an awful racket. Even the humorous sentry on post three heard it and, providentially unsuspicious, called: "Yer ain't bit yerse'f, have yer?" I made no answer to this, trusting him to be satisfied with his own wit. Yet now, following a most natural impulse, forgetting in our extreme peril that Sylvia was unaware of my presence, I leaned above the top and reached down to her; when, to my utter consternation, she gave a piercing scream of terror. Quick as a flash the sentry at post three yelled and fired his gun, and the sleeping camp became a bedlam of cursing men. "For God's sake," I whispered--but Smilax had turned back to us and was beside her. "Him friend," he said, hurriedly. "Only friend we got! Go with him quick! Me get Echochee!"