d push off a sinewy brown hand reached out and clutched the
gunwale of the liberated boat. Blake ignored the clutching hand. But,
relying on his own sheer strength, he startled the owning of the hand
by suddenly flinging himself forward, seizing the carbine barrel, and
wresting it free. A second later it disappeared beneath the surface of
the water.

That impassioned brown hand, however, still clung to the boat's
gunwale. It clung there determinedly, blindly--and Blake knew there
was no time for a struggle. He brought the heavy-bladed knife down on
the clinging fingers. It was a stroke like that of a cleaver on a
butcher's block. In the strong white light that still played on them
he could see the flash of teeth in the man's opened mouth, the upturn
of the staring eye-balls as the severed fingers fell away and he
screamed aloud with pain.

But with one quick motion of his gorilla-like arms Blake pushed his
boat free, telling himself there was still time, warning himself to
keep cool and make the most of every chance. Yet as he turned to take
up the oars he saw that he had been discovered by the Ecuadoreans on
the freighter's deck, that his flight was not to be as simple as he had
expected. He saw the lean brown face, picked out by the white light,
as a carbineer swung his short-barreled rifle out over the rail--and
the man in the surf-boat knew by that face what was coming.

His first impulse was to reach into his pocket for his revolver. But
that, he knew, was already too late, for a second man had joined the
first and a second rifle was already swinging round on him. His next
thought was to dive over the boat's side. This thought had scarcely
formulated itself, however, before he heard the bark of the rifle and
saw the puff of smoke.

At the same moment he felt the rip and tug of the bullet through the
loose side-folds of his coat. And with that rip and tug came a third
thought, over which he did not waver. He threw up his hands, sharply,
and flung himself headlong across the body of the dead man in the
bottom of the surf-boat.

He fell heavily, with a blow that shook the wind from his body. But as
he lay there he knew better than to move. He lay there, scarcely
daring to breathe, dreading that the rise and fall of his breast would
betray his ruse, praying that his boat would veer about so his body
would be in the shadow. For he knew the two waiting carbines were
still pointed at him.

He lay