frenzied and ineffectual bellow of
"Full steam ahead! For the love o' Christ, full ahead down there!"

Through all that bedlam Blake remained resentfully cool, angrily
clear-thoughted. He saw that the steamer did not move forward. He
concluded the engine-room to be deserted. And he saw both the futility
and the danger of remaining where he was.

He crawled back to where he remembered the rope-coil lay, dragging the
loose end of it back after him, and then lowering it over the ship's
side until it touched the water. Then he shifted this rope along the
rail until it swung over the last of the line of surf-boats that bobbed
and thudded against the side-plates of the gently rolling steamer.
About him, all the while, he could hear the shouts of men and the
staccato crack of the rifles. But he saw to it that his rope was well
tied to the rail-stanchion. Then he clambered over the rail itself,
and with a double twist of the rope about his great leg let himself
ponderously down over the side.

He swayed there, for a moment, until the roll of the ship brought him
thumping against the rusty plates again. At the same moment the
shifting surf-boat swung in under him. Releasing his hold, he went
tumbling down between the cartridge-cases and the boat-thwarts.

This boat, he saw, was still securely tied to its mate, one of the
larger-bodied _lanchas_, and he had nothing with which to sever the
rope. His first impulse was to reach for his revolver and cut through
the manilla strands by means of a half-dozen quick shots. But this, he
knew, would too noisily announce his presence there. So he fell on his
knees and peered and prodded about the boat bottom. There, to his
surprise, he saw the huddled body of a dead man, face down. This body
he turned over, running an exploring hand along the belt-line. As he
had hoped, he found a heavy nine-inch knife there.

He was dodging back to the bow of the surf-boat when a uniformed figure
carrying a rifle came scuttling and shouting down the landing-ladder.
Blake's spirits sank as he saw that figure. He knew now that his
movement had been seen and understood. He knew, too, as he saw the
figure come scrambling out over the rocking boats, what capture would
mean.

He had the last strand of the rope severed before the Ecuadorean with
the carbine reached the _lancha_ next to him. He still felt, once he
was free, that he could use his revolver and get away. But before
Blake coul