Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/97

Rh the bluff and finished what the treacherous sky had left undone. By the time the disarmed guard had recovered sufficiently to cry for help, the dory was a hundred yards off the beach and making excellent time in the direction of the green light.

They wrought at the oars with a machine-like precision that drove the boat fast and furiously. Concealment of their purpose from those aboard the schooner was out of the question. The racket and the play of flash-lamps along the beach must have betrayed the fact that they had turned the tables long before the dory left the inshore shoals.

Caution, however, made them rest on their oars while yet a little way from their goal. No sound was audible other than the whine of an ungreased block; nothing was visible beyond the glare of the green lantern.

"What think?" Barcus whispered.

"No telling," Alan replied. "All a chance."

"You've got that gun handy?"—with reference to the rifle of which they had despoiled the victim of the sky's ill-faith.

"Here."

"Then—let's go to it! Give way!"

A dozen strokes brought them alongside, and the two young men dropped oars, rose, and seizing the low gunwale, lifted themselves to the deck. Nothing opposed them: the deck was silent and deserted.