"Overboard!" gasped Caradoc and took a sudden leap over the rail into the night. Madden followed, trusting not to hit the dinghy and kill himself. Malone was already scrambling down the rope ladder as fast as he could go.
While a dive of one or two hundred feet is not uncommon, still Madden's thirty-five foot drop sent chill tickly sensations through his chest and throat. It seemed as if he would never stop falling through the darkness, but at last he struck the water and went down, down, down.
When he finally kicked himself back to the surface and thrust his head out, he heard a violent whispering among the excited boatmen. A moment later an oar struck him under the armpit. Madden seized it, whispered his own name and scuttled in over the gunwale. The men were shoving desperately at the ship's side in an effort to get the dinghy under way.
From the deck overhead came guttural shouts in German and fainter answers. Fortunately the guard did not take upon himself the responsibility of shooting down into the boat, and in a minute or two the refugees had assembled the oars and were rowing furiously from the mother ship.
In the dim zone of light that belted the promenade, Madden could see a number of hurrying figures. Then came a sharp command, and a rifle stabbed the darkness with a knife of fire and a keen report.
Immediately came another, then another, then several. Bullets chucked viciously into the water about the dinghy.
Under the straining arms of four oarsmen the little boat moved briskly out of its perilous position. Jammed between two sailors, the boy sat staring back at the men gathering on the promenade. The flashing of many rifles kept a constant streak of light along a considerable section of the deck. Bullets seemed to whine within an inch of his ears. The dinghy appeared to be retreating at a snail's pace, and the frightened boy gripped furiously at the gunwale in an absurd effort to speed it up. He twisted about, trying to keep his shoulders in a line with the flashing rifles so as to offer the thinnest target. A man in the stern of the dinghy groaned, and slumped down into the bottom.
Just then a searchlight leaped into play from the top deck of the ship. Its long ray shot out in a trembling cone through the darkness. It switched here and there with appalling swiftness. The crew in the little boat stared at it, holding their breaths. When that leaping ray fell on the dinghy it would be followed by a rain of steel.
The firing on the promenade deck ceased, Waiting for the searchlight to direct their aim. Just then the beam fell on the Vulcan with dazzling brilliance. The tug stood out sharply against the night, and she proved to be much closer than Leonard had fancied. The little rowboat had been traveling faster than he thought.
Then the brilliant circle left the tug and, began crawling carefully over the water toward the dinghy.