Hoarse and angry, the thunder rumbled, ever louder.
Across the water, in the dying light of the last flare they had ignited, he could see Don and Garry, their bodies rising and bending in rapid rhythms as they put all their strength behind the oars on their rescue errand.
The door of the shack, when Chick came to it again, stood as before.
He hurried in.
The wind began to blow in short, sharp puffs. A vivid fork of light thrust its fire from cloud to earth. A crash and rumble followed.
Chick shivered; but it was not from fear of the storm.
Somewhere within that small boathouse came a low moan! Hollow, hard to locate, it chilled Chick’s very marrow.
He braced his shaken nerves, standing just inside the doorway, his presence hidden from peering eyes by some old oilskins behind which he had hurriedly dodged.
A glare of burning air, a blue-white bolt of fire, threw the inside of the place into brightness akin to day.
In that flash Chick’s eyes caught the huddle of a body in a corner.