Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/54

 "You get away from here!" Nelson said angrily to the three triangles when they were revealed to his view almost directly ahead of him, and only a few short waves distant.

They continued to approach, placidly sinister.

The Caliph was now so far away that the two figures in the cockpit were indistinguishable. The boat appeared to be no more than a small brown arrowhead, flying upon two little white wings of spume; and Nelson knew that he himself and the Peanut had become invisible to the Caliph. His human loneliness upon the vast water all at once seemed a dreadful thing; and the next moment, when he saw the three dark fins close together and shining wetly in the dip of the wave just beyond the Peanut's bow, uncontrollable panic seized upon him suddenly and completely.

"I told you to get away from here!" he shouted fiercely.

Then, forgetting his urgent need to keep his paddle every instant to its proper service, he swept it forward through the air in a gesture threatening the three ominous triangles. The bow of the Peanut immediately swung round into the trough and the little boat, caught upon its side, received a cargo of