So Gage had to submit, which he did with a better grace when he reflected that there might, after all, be some risk in saving a panic-stricken lover of life in really deep water.

The two fishermen made a great fuss over their sport, angling as probably no one in this world had ever angled before, and in a manner calculated not to take in the most unsophisticated fish that ever swam.

What their proceedings, however, lacked in method, they made up in exuberance; never before had two such showy fishermen sat in a punt.

Naturally their intention was to emphasize, generally, their existence, more particularly their presence in the punt on the lake, and incidentally their designs upon the fish. To their satisfaction they saw that they were not without observers. The farmer, to whom the grazing of the park was let, had luckily put in an appearance to inspect his sheep, accompanied by a semi-sporting person who might, however, have been, and indeed was, a butcher from Bunbury in quest of raw material. Presently two women came in sight, crossing the park by a right of way which skirted the lake.

The moment was propitious.

"Old man," said Gage, "this is grand. We're in luck for an audience.

Now, over you topple; only, do it artistically, or you will have your dip for nothing."

Peckover threw a distasteful glance at the weed-grown water, and then his eye roved from the haggling fanner and butcher to the chattering pair of villagers. "Almost too much of an audience," he objected, with a view to postponing his immersion as long as possible.

"Rats! Can't be too many for our purpose," Gage returned impatiently.

"We've got to make a business of it, if it's to do any good. Over you go. The water won't be any damper for you than it will be for me."

"You can swim," observed Peckover with something suspiciously like a chattering of the teeth.

"What odds does that make in four foot six of water?"

"Beastly weedy hole," remarked the unwilling adventurer.

"All the better. Makes it look more dangerous, and keeps people from seeing how shallow it is."

"I believe," said Peckover, with an admirable air of conviction, "there is an out-sized pike under those weeds. I just saw his scales glisten."

"Then you'll astonish him, that's all," was the unsympathetic reply.

"Any one would think it was a crocodile or a shark by the funk you're in. Now, are you going over? Not knowing the treat that's in store for them these people aren't likely to wait all day. They'll be past directly. Stand up and swing your line out." Nerving himself to the disagreeable task, Peckover stood up, and began swinging the rod round his head.

"That'll do," said Gage, with a show of directing his attention elsewhere. "Now, over! That'll do with the rod. They'll think you mad. Over, you fool!"

Thus adjured, Peckover took the plunge, if plunge it can be called.

Dropping the whirling rod on the placid surface of the lake, he suddenly stooped, nervously clutched the gunwale of the punt and, a.s.sisted surrept.i.tiously in the manoeuvre by Gage's left foot, tamely rolled over the side. His despairing shout, which had been agreed upon, was smothered by the shock of the cold water and the utterer's general preoccupation. It therefore remained for Gage to do the shouting, which duty he performed with a vigour out of proportion to the apparent exigences of the case.

CHAPTER XIV

For the dripping Peckover was still holding tenaciously on to the side of the punt, with a fixity of purpose which no mere considerations of stage effect seemed likely to dispose him to relax. Added to this, there was more of his body above the surface of the water than appeared quite consistent with the idea of imminent and deadly peril; this was accounted for by the fact that he was standing, miserably enough, on the bottom of the lake.

"Get down! Let go of the punt! D'ye hear?" commanded Gage, in an exasperated undertone. "What's the good of hanging on there like a fool? Get down, will you? Duck that idiotic mug of yours under water, or how am I to go after you?"

"I--d--d--daren't," chattered Peckover: "my feet are slipping or sinking or something; it's dashed deep mud at the bottom."

"I wish your head was in it instead of your feet," retorted his prospective heroic rescuer, all the while making a fine show of bustle, for which, however, as viewed from the sh.o.r.e there was no obvious need.

"Will you get down, before I knock you under?"

As he spoke Gage was surrept.i.tiously jabbing at Peckover's fingers, and, incidentally, at his face with the b.u.t.t-end of his rod. This somewhat drastic method of enforcing his orders and ensuring the vraisemblance of the performance was perhaps justified by the manifest absurdity and uselessness of his taking a showy and heroic dive in order to rescue a man who was, to the spectator's eye, holding comfortably on to a substantial punt with his breathing organs high out of the water. As matters--that is to say, Peckover--stood, danger was the last thing that would suggest itself to the casual onlooker. The note at the moment was farcical; it was urgently necessary to change it to the tragic, even at the expense of loosening a few of Peckover's front teeth.

That unhappy dissembler, finding the episode of having a bra.s.s-capped b.u.t.t in forcible contact with the more sensitive and damageable parts of his physiognomy more than he had bargained for, spluttered forth an objurgatory remonstrance, and, to cut short the objectionable attentions, let go, disappearing forthwith under the side of the punt.

Whereupon Gage, uttering a wild and wholly unnecessary shout, poised himself for a few moments with one foot on the gunwale, and then, having attracted the attention he desired, took a tremendous dive into the water. With such vigour did he go down that he forced his head and arms into a thick bed of weeds, which demanded for a time his breathless attention. On extricating himself from the difficulty, and coming to the surface, he was much concerned to find that Peckover was nowhere to be seen. Instantly he took another superfluous dive, and as he came up, knocked his head against the bottom of the punt. Half dizzy with the blow, he now saw Peckover watching his efforts from the other side of the craft whither he had worked his way round while the diving was in progress.

"What are you doing round there, you idiot?" he gasped. "Get right down into the water at once and shout for help till I come along and catch hold of you."

With the word, he struck out manfully and swam round to the other side of the punt, only to find on arriving there that Peckover had disappeared. Whereupon he dived again, only to come up empty-handed once more, and to see the anxious face watching him, alertly apprehensive, over the farther gunwale.

"What fool's game is this?" he hissed.

"None of your larks," returned Peckover in a tone of resolute desire for self-preservation. The cold water, the weeds and the mud were beginning to tell upon him; all sense of a practical joke had evaporated.

Gage looked round. On the right the farmer and the butcher, on the left the two women had come down to the margin of the lake and were watching the proceedings in a silence which betokened some doubt in their minds as to how they ought to take it.

"Will you get under water and let me come to the rescue?" Gage demanded with exasperation.

"Not good enough," Peckover replied, and thereupon he began a spirited effort to climb back into the punt.

"Fool!" Gage shut his mouth with a snap, and took a vicious dive under the punt as the shortest cut to his objective.

As he rose, Peckover was half on board. Without further expostulation Gage seized the leg which still hung in the water and furiously tried to drag it down. Peckover resisted, kicking, and a very pretty struggle ensued, which taking place, as might be supposed, between a millionaire and a peer of the Realm, must have given rise to singular reflections and conjectures in the minds of the onlookers.

Eventually the turn of the position favoured Gage. The conditions under which Peckover fought rendered the struggle additionally painful; by degrees he lost ground and finally was dragged back exhausted into the water.

"You stupid a.s.s, I've a good mind to shove you under and keep you there," Gage growled.

His victim could only gasp and shiver.

"What must we look like from the sh.o.r.e?" Gage demanded savagely.

Peckover made no reply, but from his manner it might have been gathered that his mental att.i.tude on the subject was one of complete indifference.

"Haven't we had enough of this tommy-rot?" at last he ventured to suggest.

Gage was maintaining a fine show of keeping afloat in the four-foot-six. "I think we have," he returned. "I'm getting chilly, so we had better come to business. Now, will you keep down in the water when you've quite done advertising the fact that it isn't up to our shoulders?"

All the response Peckover made was--"Look at the punt!"

Keeping the corner of an eye warily on his companion, Gage turned and looked. The distance between them and the punt instead of a few feet was now some twenty yards. The cause of this alteration was obvious.

Their struggles had caused the cord which made fast the craft to one of the poles to become untied and the other pole to work loose. There was some wind, under which the punt was now moving at a fair pace over the lake, dragging one pole with it.

"All right," said Gage, "I'll soon catch it and bring it back."

But Peckover clutched him with the tenacity of despair. "No, you don't," he exclaimed, anxiously resolute. "You don't leave me here.

How am I to get ash.o.r.e if you don't come back?"

"Walk," answered Gage, trying to free himself.

"Yes, I dare say," Peckover retorted. "You don't catch me trying it.

It's not the same depth all over. We're on a bit of a bank here."