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 the rocks on its way to the lagoon. A few minutes at most, and the hounds would be on the right scent.
These things Roger told himself, but he had not sat still to listen. After the first second of straining attention, he sprang up, threw off his coat and waistcoat, and kicked off his shoes.
"I'm going to help him if I can," he said. "His strength may fail, or some stray shark may be a little cleverer than its fellows and find its way through the rushes. Anyhow, here goes; and if Dalahaide gets to you before me, don't wait. Push out the best you can, and I'll catch you up, swimming."
There was no time for arguing or objecting, even if it had been in Trent's mind to do either. Since it was right for one to go, and Roger chose to be that one, he must stay; but, even for Maxime's sake, and for Madeleine's, he could not, he decided, leave Roger Broom to follow—for there were the sharks. No, they three must stand or fall together, whatever happened now.
The lagoon, in the spot where Roger left the launch, was too deep for wading, nor could he swim there. Somehow—he scarcely knew how—he seemed to tread water, his feet slipping among the slimy tangled stems that were like a network under the surface, a brackish taste in his mouth, the rank, salt smell of seaweeds in his nostrils, and his ears a soft, sly rustling which might mean the disturbed protest of a thousand little subterranean existences, or—the pursuit of an enemy more deadly than any on land.
It was a harder task than he had thought; still he persevered. "Dalahaide, where are you?" he called.
"Here!" came the answer, only a few yards away. "I'm caught in something, and up to my knees in mud. I think my wound's broken out again. For heaven's sake, go back and let them take me. After all, what does it matter for me? I'm done. A thousand times better die than get you all into trouble."