Over the port bow lay Mohammed Bari, very still and silent, a black thread of betel juice trickling from his mouth and something blacker running from between his shoulder-blades where a knife-haft gleamed. Jenson had acted swiftly.
Thrashing about in the launch's bottom, Hammer wrenched around and clutched the boatswain with his left hand, forcing him back against the rail. But his throat was dry, his breath was shut off, and the figure of Sara Helmuth standing in the stern, revolver in hand, was lost in a swirl of blackness.
Vaguely, Hammer felt the fingers of his right hand close on something hard beneath him, and with a last effort he brought the object up and struck the German with all his strength.
Hit squarely on the temple by the heavy wrench, Baumgardner groaned softly and fell back with loosened fingers, toppling slowly over the rail until a surf-crest picked him up gently and smothered him from sight.
Hammer lay motionless at the girl's feet, a black-red smear over brow and eyes, while she stood as if paralysed; and over the bow one of Mohammed Bari's hands flopped crazily to the lift of the surf.
And so the launch drifted slowly toward the river-mouth and beach, with no man to guide her.
CHAPTER X
AT MELINDI
"Dang it, I've a 'ole bloomin' 'ospital on me 'ands, what with Mr. 'Ammer as 'e is and Mr. Harcourt on 'is beam ends! And worse luck, it comes just when—ah, all ready, miss? And what'll it be this time?"
"Whatever you say," rejoined the voice of Sara Helmuth, grave and self-contained. "Is there any change in Mr. Harcourt?"