Siebold fired wildly, and one of the bystanders went down, with a groan. The rest scattered or threw themselves flat on the decks.
Grantley, however, in contrast to his nervous assistant, was perfectly cool. The detectives were hardly more than twenty feet away, despite the two intervening canal boats, and the scoundrelly surgeon began pumping away as fast as he could and with the steadiest of hands.
His first shot went just over the detectives’ heads, but the second one would doubtless have caught Nick full in the breast had it not been that the police boat grazed the side of the nearest barge at that moment.
The result was that Nick and his companions were thrown off their balance for the time being, luckily for them. Their efforts to prevent themselves from falling were as effective as if they had been able—and willing—to dodge Grantley’s bullets.
The second of these ripped through Nick’s coat, gouging his side a little.
“Down!” commanded the detective, and, just as the fugitives fired again, the five detectives sank below the level of the police boat’s rail.
All but their heads and weapons, that is. They remained in sight, and their revolvers blazed away in a businesslike volley that woke the echoes of the New Jersey hills.
A naval battle in miniature was taking place off West Sixtieth Street, Manhattan.
CHAPTER XXII.
GRANTLEY TAKES A SWIM.
The strain had already proved a little too much for Siebold, who was not made of such stern stuff as Grantley. When the detectives dropped down behind the rail of the police craft the younger surgeon looked about him wildly for a hiding place.