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promise anything if she would let him come aboard the dugout, but he did not
think that it was necessary to do so.
He saw that he could easily reach the bow of the boat before it cleared the shore,
and then it would not be necessary to make promises of any sort. Not that Rokoff
would have felt the slightest compunction in ignoring any promises he might have
made the girl, but he disliked the idea of having to sue for favour with one who
had so recently assaulted and escaped him.
Already he was gloating over the days and nights of revenge that would be his
while the heavy dugout drifted its slow way to the ocean.
Jane Clayton, working furiously to shove the boat beyond his reach, suddenly
realized that she was to be successful, for with a little lurch the dugout swung
quickly into the current, just as the Russian reached out to place his hand upon
its bow.
His fingers did not miss their goal by a half-dozen inches. The girl almost
collapsed with the reaction from the terrific mental, physical, and nervous strain
under which she had been labouring for the past few minutes. But, thank
Heaven, at last she was safe!
Even as she breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving, she saw a sudden
expression of triumph lighten the features of the cursing Russian, and at the
same instant he dropped suddenly to the ground, grasping firmly upon something
which wriggled through the mud toward the water.
Jane Clayton crouched, wide-eyed and horror-stricken, in the bottom of the boat
as she realized that at the last instant success had been turned to failure, and
that she was indeed again in the power of the malignant Rokoff.
For the thing that the man had seen and grasped was the end of the trailing rope
with which the dugout had been moored to the tree.
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