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fused to move on. The lush, green barricade was too thick to be cut through by its clean bow and the force of its powerful little electric motor. "It's no good," whispered George. "We can't get on any farther. This is what I was afraid of. He'll have to come out to us. Thank goodness, if we can't get through, neither can the sharks." "Where is he? Can you see him?" Roger asked. And the Voice was loud in his ears again. "No, I wish I could. I don't like to sing out. This luck of ours so far is too good to last." "Stand up and wave your hand. Perhaps he'll see and reply," said Roger. Somehow he wanted George to take the initiative now. He was afraid of being unconsciously guided by the Voice. George stood up and waved a handkerchief. No figure rose in response, but as if in answer, they heard a distant splashing in the water, and then, following so quickly that it blurred the impression of the first stealthy sound, came the sharp explosion of a shot. Instantly the slumberous silence of the tropical night was shattered by a savage confusion of noises. Other shots were fired, a great bell began to clang, another boomed a sullen echo, and from far away spoke the deep, angry voice of a cannon. "Good heavens! that's the cannon on board that beastly steam tub of theirs!" cried George. "Luckily for us it's a makeshift concern and no gunboat; but it can catch us on our way back to the yacht, and if it does, all's up." Roger did not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to save all three lives; and it would take some time at best for Dalahaide to wade, and swim, and fight his way to them, among the tangling reeds. The escaping prisoner was weak still from his recent wound; no matter how high his courage might be now, it could not in a moment repair the physical waste which he had voluntarily allowed to go on, courting the sole release he had then foreseen. The one chance left, now the alarm was given, lay in the hope that, though Dalahaide's flight from the prison hospital had been discovered, the direction he had chosen was not yet known. But the lagoon was at least as likely a place for the search to begin as any other; and then the launch might have been seen moving across the bright streak of the moon's track before it could reach the shelter of th
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