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Rh an axe with all his strength. It struck Lehane with a wooden resonance and a tingling shock that ran through Archer's forearms. Both boats upset in a souse of phosphorus.

The water was shockingly cold. Squirting a salt and golden jet from his mouth, he looked about. Two black hands, the fingers spread stiffly apart, sank in the boiling witch-fire. They were too large to be the boy's. Next instant he bumped into Peter, whose face was smeared with an unearthly glow as if rubbed with wet matches, and who held the little body under one arm, while he lashed out the other through the blue-lighted spray.

"No, no!" gasped Peter. "You can't help! Swim ashore! I 've got him. They can all swim. Get out! Swim to the ledge, anyway. Go on, man. Oh, my God!" He was sobbing as he swam.

Archer could see other men splashing lustily away in luminous patches.

"It's every man for himself," he thought, and struck out vaguely for the shore. Through the cold, shining water he swam, through