Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/416

 “Cutter ’hoy!” bawled a man at his side suddenly, one of the river police more used to the mists of the Thames. “Cutter on the port bow, sir!”

“Keep her in sight,” shouted Rogers from the stern; “don’t lose her for your lives!”

Stringer, at imminent peril of precipitating himself into the water, was craning out over the bows and staring until his eyes smarted.

“Don’t you see her?” said one of the men on the lookout. “She carries no lights, of course, but you can just make out the streak of her wake.”

Harder, harder stared Stringer, and now a faint, lighter smudge in the blackness, ahead and below, proclaimed itself the wake of some rapidly traveling craft.

“I can hear her motor!” said another voice.

Stringer began, now, also to listen.

Muffled sirens were hooting dismally all about Limehouse Reach, and he knew that this random dash through the night was fraught with extreme danger, since this was a narrow and congested part of the great highway. But, listen as he might, he could not detect the sounds referred to.

The brazen roar of a big steamer’s siren rose up before them. Rogers turned the head of the cutter sharply to starboard but did not slacken speed. The continuous roar grew deeper, grew louder.

“Sharp lookout there!” cried the inspector from the stern.

Suddenly over their bows uprose a black mass.