ses, like a wounded animal, throw himself upon the
door, jerk it open, and dash out.

As if he had only needed that vision of action to animate him, Lanyard
threw Phinuit off, so that he staggered across the slanting floor
toward the door. When he brought himself up by catching hold of its
frame, he was under the threat of his own pistol in Lanyard's hands. He
lingered for a moment, showing Lanyard a distraught and vacant face,
then apparently realising his danger faded away into the saloon.

With a roughness dictated by the desperate extremity, Lanyard strode
over to Liane Delorme, where she still crouched in her corner, staring
witlessly, caught her by one arm, fairly jerked her to her feet, and
thrust her stumbling out into the saloon. Closing the door behind her,
he shot its bolts.

He went to work swiftly then, in a fever of haste. In his ears the
clamour of the shipwrecked men upon the decks was only a distant
droning, hardly recognised for what it was by him who had not
one thought other than to make all possible advantage of every precious
instant; and so with the roar of steam from the escape-valves.

Stripping off coat and waistcoat, he took from the pocket of the latter
the wallet that held his papers, then ripped open his shirt and
unbuckled the money belt round his waist. Its pockets were ample and
fitted with trustworthy fastenings; and all but one, that held a few
English sovereigns, were empty. The jewels of Madame de Montalais went
into them as rapidly as his fingers could move.

Thus engaged, he heard a pistol explode in the saloon, and saw the
polished writing-bed of the captain's desk scored by a bullet. His gaze
shifting to the door, he discovered a neat round hole in one of its
rosewood panels. At the same time, to the tune of another report, a
second hole appeared, and the bullet, winging above the desk, buried
itself in the after-bulkhead, between the dead-lights. A stream of
bullets followed, one after another boring the stout panels as if their
consistency had been that of cheese.

Lanyard stepped out of their path and hugged the partition while he
finished stuffing the jewels into the belt and, placing the thin wallet
beneath it, strapped it tightly round him once more....

That would be Phinuit out there, no doubt, disdaining to waste time
breaking in the door, or perhaps fearing his reception once it was
down. An innocent and harmless amusement, if he enjoyed it, that it
seemed a pit