Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/113



OT more than thirty seconds could have elapsed before Barcus recovered from the shock of the motor's treachery sufficiently to reverse the wheels throttle down the carburetor, and jump out of the engine-pit. But in that small space of time the lifeboat and Alan Law had parted company as definitely as though one of them had been levitated bodily to the far side of the globe. It could not have been more than a minute after the accident before Barcus was guiding the boat over what he could have sworn was the precise spot where Alan had disappeared, but without discovering a sign of him. For the next twenty minutes he divided attention, between vain attempts to soothe the distracted girt and to educe a reply from Alan by stentorian hailing. Then of a sudden he verged so close upon the object of his search that he was warned off in a manner sufficiently arresting by nothing more or less, in fact, than a gunshot. On the echo of this a man's rough voice warned peremptorily:

"Sheer off, damn you! Sheer off! If you come 89