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90 on another yard I'll blow your heads off your shoulders!"

Precipitately Barcus reversed and then silenced the engine.

"Alan!" he yelled. "Alan! Give a hail to tell us you're safe!"

The answer came in another voice—Judith's, clear, musical, effervescent with sardonic humour.

"Be at peace, little one—bleat no more! Mr. Law is with us—and safe!"

Barcus sought counsel of Rose. Her eyes were blank with despair. He shook his head helplessly. With no way on her, the lifeboat drifted.

After a little the girl crept aft, and they conferred in guarded tones.

"What can we do?" Rose implored. "We can't leave him. … Oh, when I think of him there, in her power, I could go mad!"

"If only I knew," Barcus protested, "but my hands are tied. There's nothing to go by—except the bare chance that the reef she mentioned may he Norton's. It doesn't seem possible, but we may have made that much southing. If so, "we're about three miles off the mainland, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Katama Island, a little desolate rocky bump inhabited mainly by fishermen."

The girl racked her hands. "But how could