"Hard a port. Throw your switch."
The words tumbled from her lips in a piercing shriek. Gregory obeyed on the second, thinking the girl had lost her reason. The Richard dipped with a swerve which threw him violently against the coaming. As he felt the heavy hull sinking down into the water he saw that the Fuor d'Italia had ceased to plane and was settling sluggishly.
A snarl of disappointment burst from Mascola's
lips as he saw the Richard did not flash across his bow. A snarl, which changed quickly to a cry of rage as he noted that the two hulls were drifting sullenly toward each other. Robbed of his way, he could not escape. The Richard was already brushing the Fuor d'Italia's rail.
In a frenzy of mingled fear and rage, Mascola whipped out his dagger and leaped to the cockpit to battle with the hurtling figure that sprang from the other boat as the two hulls scraped. Gregory caught Mascola's knife arm and twisted it backward, crowding the Italian to the rail. For an instant the two men were locked in a swaying, bone-racking embrace. Then Mascola felt the oak coaming pressing hard against his knees. He was being shoved over the rail by the fury of the heavier man.
Struggling in desperation, there came a gleam of hope. In the water Gregory's superior weight would not count. Strength would not count so much, without the weight. But a knife would count. Jerking his body backward, he lunged downward into the sea, dragging his antagonist with him.
As Gregory and Mascola fell to the water, Dickie Lang drew her automatic and covering the cockpit of the Fuor d'Italia with her flash-light, peered cautiously over the rail. Upon the floor of the launch sprawled the figure of a man. His face was turned away from her. The gray linoleum was dyed red with his blood. As she watched him, his extended fingers twitched convulsively. He was still breathing. But
that was all. Seizing the rail of the Fuor d'Italia she began to work the Richard around the hull of the other craft. She dared not start the motor. The propeller might cut the men in the water to shreds. Reaching the stern of Mascola's launch she directed the rays of her light into the rippling waves.
Gregory tightened his hold on Mascola's wrist as the waters closed over his head. The Italian struggled fiercely to free his right arm as he felt his body sinking deeper into the water. Then he noticed that his antagonist had freed his legs and was moving them slowly upward to his stomach.
Locking his knees about Mascola's waist-line in a scissors-grip, Gregory began to squeeze. Lashing the water with his feet the Italian jerked his head backward and forced it against Gregory's chin. Then he freed his left arm and the fingers slid upward to his enemy's throat.