way of escape remained. Hampered as he was,
he made for the open with set teeth and terrible foreign oaths of which
he was utterly unconscious.

Whether that fierce struggle for freedom could ever have ended in success
single-handed, however, was a point which he was not destined to decide,
for after a space of desperate effort which no time could measure, there
suddenly shone the gleam of an electric torch in front of him, and he saw
the opening but a few feet away.

"Saltash!" cried a voice, piercing the outer din, "Saltash!"

"Here!" yelled back Saltash, still fighting for foothold and finding it
against the leg of the table, "That you, Larpent? How long have we got?"

"Seconds only!" said Larpent briefly. "Give me the child!"

"No! Just give me a hand, that's all! Hang on tight! It'll be a pull."

Saltash flung himself forward again, his free hand outstretched, slipped
and nearly fell on his face, then was caught by a vice-like grip that
drew him upward with grim strength. In a moment he was braced against the
frame of the door, almost standing on it, the saloon gaping below him--a
black pit of destruction. Larpent's torch showed the companion stairs
practically perpendicular above them.

"Go on!" said Larpent. "Better give me the child. It's you that matters."

"Get out, damn you!" said Saltash, and actually grinned as he began to
climb with his burden still hanging upon his shoulder.

Larpent came behind him, holding his torch to light the way. They climbed
up into a pandemonium indescribable, a wild torrent of sound.

There was light here that shone in a great flare through billows of fog,
showing the monster form of a great vessel towering above them with only
a few yards of mist-wreathed water between. The deck on which they stood
sloped upwards at an acute angle, and still from below there came the
clamour of escaping steam accompanied by a spasmodic throbbing that was
like the futile beating of giant wings against Titanic bars.

A knot of men were struggling to lower a boat by the ghostly glare that
lit the night about them, clambering and slipping against the rails,
while a voice from beyond the fog-curtain yelled through a megaphone
unintelligible commands.

All these things were registered upon Saltash's brain, his quick
perception leaping from point to point with a mental agility that was
wholly outside all conscious volition on his part. He was driven by
circumstance as a bird is driven by s