Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/133

Rh carriage swung smoothly and silently up from its lair.

The other officer, looking down, started violently.

"Verdammt! What's this?"

The first rejoined him. "Impossible!"

"Impossible or not—a man or a cadaver!"

"Have him up and see. …"

By order, two of the crew dragged Lanyard up to the bridge, supporting him by main strength while the officers examined him.

"At the last gasp, but alive," one announced.

"How the devil did he get out here?"

"From the Assyrian"

"Impossible for any man to swim this far since our torpedo struck"

"Then he must have gone overboard before it struck—or was thrown"

A cry of alarm from the group about the gun, awaiting final orders to open fire upon the Assyrian's boats, interrupted the conference. The officers swung away in haste.

"Hell's fury! what's that searchlight?"

"A Yankee destroyer—in all probability the one we dodged yesterday afternoon."

"She'll find us yet if we don't submerge. Forward, there—house that gun! And get below—quickly!"

During a moment of apparent confusion, one of the men sustaining Lanyard caught the attention of an officer.

"What shall we do with this fellow, sir?" he enquired.

"Leave him here to sink or swim as we go down," snapped the officer—"and be damned to him!"