Only seven were hanged
fragments. The figure of the fugitive disappeared with a splash.
Bern stood still, looking; not moving a muscle.
A large black patch of water lay like a blot on the white river.
Bern shrugged his shoulders.
"The fool didn't know that the river runs too swiftly in the middle
to freeze hard," he muttered. "That was the part of the bargain he
overlooked. It was him or me. Maybe I'll never get my bank notes
back, but I'll make a complaint of burglary."
He walked back to his house, and as he laid his hand on the door to
enter he cast a glance at the river.
"And he wanted to dictate terms to me--to us that have lived by
bargaining for thousands of years!"
The bludgeon of Kartarus, the barbarian, was lying once more in the
black sludge of the river bed.
THE END