other end of the world.

He had gone down at first, and a hundred thoughts seemed to have spun
themselves in his head by the time he rose to the surface. Shaking the
water out of his eyes, he looked anxiously round for Roger and Maxime.
They were nowhere to be seen, and a pang shot through George Trent's
breast like a dagger of ice. What if one or both of them had already met
the terrible fate which he had pictured for himself?

His whole soul was so concentrated upon this fear that for a few seconds
he was deaf and blind to everything outside; but suddenly he realized
that the firing between the yacht and the Government boat was still going
on, a further cannonade which woke strange echoes over the water.

"Roger--Dalahaide!" he called. No answer came, but, as his eyes strained
through the haze of moonlight, a dark dot appeared on the bright mirror
of the sea, moving fast, and a cry was raised which, though not loud,
carried clearly, and seemed to George Trent the most terrible he had ever
heard:

"A shark--a shark!"

CHAPTER X

"ONCE ON BOARD THE LUGGER"

It was Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout
so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place
where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second
head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.

That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the
years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime
had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to
imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But
that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so
horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp
agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he could not go back to
Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.

His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling
sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the
world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was
young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger
and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for
help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the
French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it
would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to