Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/199

 to a stop until he was well back in the shelter of a rusty capstan, cut off from the light by a lifeboat swinging on its davits. As he clambered to his feet again he saw this light suddenly go out and then reappear. As it did so he could make out a patrol-boat, gray and low-bodied, slinking forward through the gloom. He could see that boat crowded with men, men in uniform, and he could see that each man carried a carbine. He could also see that it would surely cut across the bow of his own steamer. A moment later he knew that Tankred himself had seen this, for high above the crack and whine of the shooting and the tumult of voices he could now hear Tankred's blasphemous shouts.

"Cut loose those boats!" bellowed the frantic gun-runner. Then he repeated the command, apparently in Spanish. And to this came an answering babel of cries and expostulations and counter-cries. But still the firing from behind the searchlight kept up. Blake could see a half-naked seaman with a carpenter's ax skip monkey-like down the