fused to move on. The lush, green barricade was
too thick to be cut through by its clean bow and the force of its
powerful little electric motor.

"It's no good," whispered George. "We can't get on any farther. This is
what I was afraid of. He'll have to come out to us. Thank goodness, if we
can't get through, neither can the sharks."

"Where is he? Can you see him?" Roger asked. And the Voice was loud in
his ears again.

"No, I wish I could. I don't like to sing out. This luck of ours so far
is too good to last."

"Stand up and wave your hand. Perhaps he'll see and reply," said Roger.

Somehow he wanted George to take the initiative now. He was afraid of
being unconsciously guided by the Voice.

George stood up and waved a handkerchief. No figure rose in response, but
as if in answer, they heard a distant splashing in the water, and then,
following so quickly that it blurred the impression of the first stealthy
sound, came the sharp explosion of a shot. Instantly the slumberous
silence of the tropical night was shattered by a savage confusion of
noises. Other shots were fired, a great bell began to clang, another
boomed a sullen echo, and from far away spoke the deep, angry voice of a
cannon.

"Good heavens! that's the cannon on board that beastly steam tub of
theirs!" cried George. "Luckily for us it's a makeshift concern and no
gunboat; but it can catch us on our way back to the yacht, and if it
does, all's up."

Roger did not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the
water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din
of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to
save all three lives; and it would take some time at best for Dalahaide
to wade, and swim, and fight his way to them, among the tangling reeds.
The escaping prisoner was weak still from his recent wound; no matter how
high his courage might be now, it could not in a moment repair the
physical waste which he had voluntarily allowed to go on, courting the
sole release he had then foreseen.

The one chance left, now the alarm was given, lay in the hope that,
though Dalahaide's flight from the prison hospital had been discovered,
the direction he had chosen was not yet known. But the lagoon was at
least as likely a place for the search to begin as any other; and then
the launch might have been seen moving across the bright streak of the
moon's track before it could reach the shelter of th