He grasped the rail and edged toward Dutch Gus’s door. Stout blows indicated that the crook was trying to pound his way out. The panels had been shattered. The way was barred by the planks which were nailed to the sills.
The cracksman grasped the end of one of these, braced his feet against the cabin-sheathing, and jerked the plank from its nail hold. He dropped his hand swiftly to his side pocket and drew out the tiny revolver. Poising it, he waited grimly.
First the shock-head and then the evil, heavy-browed eyes of the crook appeared. These were followed by his shoulders.
“Get back!â€� snapped Fay, thrusting forward his revolver. “Get back—you—Get back!â€�
Fay moved toward Saidee Isaacs. She was standing helplessly by the boat’s falls.
“Cast these off,� he said, bending and untwisting the ropes from the cleats. “That’s right, help! Now get into the boat. I’ll lower it. See, it goes out and down. The water isn’t far.�
A reaching comber lapped over the bow of the doomed freighter and curled along the upper decks. Fay braced himself against this flood. He saw the boat lift and then drop into a trough of the waves. It crashed against the ship’s plates. Saidee Isaacs was thrown against a gunwale. She raised to her knees and glanced helplessly up at him.
He turned and darted a swift survey of the canted deck. Dutch Gus was crawling through the opening between the planks. The stern of the ship was a swelter of foam and curling eddies. A small-boat, crowded with Dutch seamen, tossed like an egg-shell upon the crest of a wave. It disappeared in the hollow between two great seas.
Fay climbed over the rail, waited, then leaped the
distance for the small-boat. He landed in the stern and fell sideways. He rose and grasped the gunwales; Saidee Isaacs’s face was not more than a foot from his. Her dark eyes had opened to their widest proportions. Her hat and waist were sodden with brine.