In one moment I heard a loud shout come from the man at the gates, and saw Dolly, despite her warning, stand hurriedly up and Duke make a wild clutch at her; the next, the skiff reeled under me and I was spun, kicking and struggling, into the water. An accident, common enough and bad enough to those who know little of Thames craft, had befallen us. We had got the boat’s stern jammed upon a side beam of the lock, so that her nose only dropped with the sinking water. I rose at once in a black swirl. The skiff, jerked free by our unceremonious exit, floated unharmed in the lock, but she floated empty. Risen to the surface, however, almost with me, Duke’s dark head emerged close by her, so that with one frantic leap upward he was able to reach her thwarts, to which he clung. “Dolly!” he gasped--“Dolly!” I had seen her before he could cry out again, had seized and was struggling with her. “Don’t hold me!” I cried; “let me go, Dolly, and I’ll save you.” She was quite beyond reason, deaf to anything but the despairing call of life. In another instant, I knew, we should both go under and be dragged into the rush of the sluices. Seeing the uselessness of trying to unclasp her hands, I fought to throw myself and her toward the side of the lock nearest. The water was bubbling in my mouth, when I felt a great iron hook whipped into the collar of my coat and we were both hauled to the side. “Hold on there, mate!” cried the lock-keeper, “while I get your boat under.” I had caught at a dangling loop of chain; but even so the weight of my almost senseless burden threatened to drag me down. “Be quick!” I gasped, “I’m pretty near spent.” With the same grapnel he caught and towed the boat, Duke still hanging to it, to where I clung, and leaped down himself into it. “Now,” he said, “get a leg over and you’re right.” It was a struggle even then, for Dolly would not let me out of her agonized clutch--not till we could lay her, white as a storm-beaten lily, on the bottom boards. Then we turned and seized Duke over the thwarts and he tumbled in and lay in a heap, quite exhausted. His mind relieved, our preserver took off his cap, scratched his forehead and spat into the water. “I’ve known a many wanting your luck,” he said, gruffly. “What made you do it, now?” Judging our ignorance to be by no means common property, I said, “Ah, what?” in the tone that suggests acquiescence, or wonder, and asked him if he had a fire handy. “There’s a bright one burning inside,” he said. “You’re welcome to it.” He punted the boat to a shallow flight of steps, oozy with slime, that led to the bank above, where his cottage was. “We’ll carry the gal to it,” said he. “See if she can move herself.” I bent down over the prostrate figure. It looked curiously youthful and slender in its soaked and clinging garments. “Dolly,” I whispered, “there’s a fire above. Will you let me carry you to it?”