y cut short by
her assailant, the maid taking up the appeal, in her fright
unconsciously reverting to her native tongue, in her turn being forcibly
silenced....

All the while he was running, heedless of his injured foot--pitching,
slipping, stumbling, leaping--somehow making progress.

By now the moon had lifted above the beach high enough to aid him
somewhat with its waxing light; and, looking ahead, he could distinguish
dimly shapes about the dock and upon it that seemed to bear out his most
cruel fears. The power-boat was passably distinct, her white side
showing plainly through the tempered darkness. Midway down the dock he
made out struggling figures--two of them, he judged: a man at close
grips with a frantic woman. And where the structure joined the land, a
second pair, again a man and a woman, strove and swayed....

And always the night grew brighter with the spectral glow of the moon
and the mirroring waters.

For all his haste, he was too slow; he was still a fair thirty yards
away when the struggle on the dock ended abruptly with the collapse of
the woman; it was as if, he thought, her strength had failed all in an
instant--as if she had fainted. He saw the man catch her up in his arms,
where she lay limp and unresisting, and with this burden step from the
stage to the boat and disappear from sight beneath the coaming. An
instant later he reappeared, standing at full height in the cockpit.
Without warning his arm straightened out and a tongue of flame jetted
from his hand; there was a report; in the same breath a bullet buried
itself in the low earth bank on Whitaker's right. Heedless, he pelted
on.

The shot seemed to signal the end of the other struggle at the
landing-stage. Scarcely had it rung out ere Whitaker saw the man lift a
fist and dash it brutally into the woman's face. Without a sound audible
at that distance she reeled and fell away; while the man turned, ran
swiftly out to the end of the dock, cast off the headwarp and jumped
aboard the boat.

She began to sheer off as Whitaker set foot upon the stage. She was
twenty feet distant when he found himself both at its end and at the end
of his resource. He was too late. Already he could hear the deeper
resonance of the engine as the spark was advanced and the throttle
opened. In another moment she would be heading away at full tilt.

Frantic with despair, he thrashed the air with impotent arms: a fair
mark, his white garments shining bright