"Now is the time," I whispered, slitting Snake's bonds with my knife.  "You go overboard and you also tell me where the letter is.""I understand," whispered Snake.With my knife at his back, I made Snake climb up through both hatches and drove him to the side of the Sea Cutter."Now tell me where the letter is, then jump off," I whispered.  "Don't try to get back on.  By the time you swim to shore, we'll be gone."Snake turned around and folded his arms against his chest, looking at me with a cocky expression.  "I've changed my mind," he said."Changed your mind!" I whispered fiercely.  "You can't change your mind!""Well, I do.  I can't swim.  I'd rather face Wayland," Snake said."You're not going to see Wayland," I hissed."I could shout for him," Snake said."Go over." I held the knife up to his chest."You see, Nat," Snake grinned, "we really are alike.  You're ready to force an unarmed man to drown—to murder me.  You're a murderer just like me.""I'm not at all like you!" I cried in an infuriated whisper, and I hit him across the jaw with the flat of the knife.Snake's head snapped back, his eyes rolled up, and he fell backward into the water.  It closed above him and all was still.  I bent over the water.  A minute passed.  Two minutes passed.  Three.  Snake wasn't coming up.My fury vanished.  What had I done?  I had knocked a man unconscious, sending him into the water where he would surely drown.  I didn't want to be a killer, but in moment of rage I had done it.  Perhaps I was no better than Snake.Suddenly a pistol shot rang out and I felt a stinging impact in the center of my back.  Things seemed to slow down.  I saw my knife fall out of my hands and flip twice before it plunged into the water.  Then I saw the green water slowly coming up to meet me as I fell.  The sunlit roof of water closed leisurely above me like a curtain at a theatre, and slowly rose further and further above my head.  The ache in my back throbbed with slow pulses.  Little by little, my lungs told me I was out of air as I sank deeper and deeper into the darkness.Then I remembered what was down at the bottom of that darkness—Snake's dead body.I clawed at the water but continued to sink toward the body.My foot hit the bottom and I frantically shoved myself upward, but just as I started up, a cold dead hand gripped my ankle.The last of my air went out in a silent scream.