Roger did not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to save all three lives; and it would take some time at best for Dalahaide to wade, and swim, and fight his way to them, among the tangling reeds.
The escaping prisoner was weak still from his recent wound; no matter how high his courage might be now, it could not in a moment repair the physical waste which he had voluntarily allowed to go on, courting the sole release he had then foreseen.
The one chance left, now the alarm was given, lay in the hope that, though Dalahaide"s flight from the prison hospital had been discovered, the direction he had chosen was not yet known. But the lagoon was at least as likely a place for the search to begin as any other; and then the launch might have been seen moving across the bright streak of the moon"s track before it could reach the shelter of the rocks on its way to the lagoon. A few minutes at most, and the hounds would be on the right scent.
These things Roger told himself, but he had not sat still to listen.
After the first second of straining attention, he sprang up, threw off his coat and waistcoat, and kicked off his shoes.
"I"m going to help him if I can," he said. "His strength may fail, or some stray shark may be a little cleverer than its fellows and find its way through the rushes. Anyhow, here goes; and if Dalahaide gets to you before me, don"t wait. Push out the best you can, and I"ll catch you up, swimming."
There was no time for arguing or objecting, even if it had been in Trent"s mind to do either. Since it was right for one to go, and Roger chose to be that one, he must stay; but, even for Maxime"s sake, and for Madeleine"s, he could not, he decided, leave Roger Broom to follow--for there were the sharks. No, they three must stand or fall together, whatever happened now.
The lagoon, in the spot where Roger left the launch, was too deep for wading, nor could he swim there. Somehow--he scarcely knew how--he seemed to tread water, his feet slipping among the slimy tangled stems that were like a network under the surface, a brackish taste in his mouth, the rank, salt smell of seaweeds in his nostrils, and his ears a soft, sly rustling which might mean the disturbed protest of a thousand little subterranean existences, or--the pursuit of an enemy more deadly than any on land.
It was a harder task than he had thought; still he persevered.
"Dalahaide, where are you?" he called.
"Here!" came the answer, only a few yards away. "I"m caught in something, and up to my knees in mud. I think my wound"s broken out again. For heaven"s sake, go back and let them take me. After all, what does it matter for me? I"m done. A thousand times better die than get you all into trouble."
"You _all_!" Even in that moment Roger said to himself that "all" meant Virginia. Dalahaide was thinking of her. He would rather die than she should be punished for this bold attempt to break the law. But aloud Roger cried out that he would go back with Maxime or he would not go back at all, and cheering the other, with death in his own heart, he struggled along, half swimming, half wading, but always moving on, how he hardly knew. Then at last he saw a dark head, and a face, white in the moonlight, floating seemingly on the reedy surface of the lagoon, like a water lotus on its stem.
Roger grasped a handful of slippery stems and held out a strong left hand to the wounded man.
"Take hold, and I"ll pull you out," he said.
The two hands met, one thin and white with a prison pallor, the other brown and muscular and dependable. They joined, and Roger held on to the bunch of slippery stems so hard that they cut into his fingers. Once he thought they were yielding, but at that instant Dalahaide was lifted out of the mud in which he had sunk. Roger caught him under the arm and held him up. Scrambling, rustling, pushing, sinking, rising, spitting out salt, brackish water, they struggled back toward the launch.
There it was, waiting, Trent crouching down, scarcely breathing in his agony of impatience. They saw him, and at the same time their heads came into sight for him, among the tall, dark spears of the rushes. In another moment George in the launch and Roger in the water were pulling and pushing Maxime, half fainting now, up over the side of the swaying boat.
As he tumbled in, limply, Roger saw a dark stain on the wet, gray convict jacket. It was black in the moonlight, but Roger knew it would be red by day. The wound in his back had broken out again, as he had thought; even if they saved him now, it might only be to die. It was the cold Voice that said this; and Roger shuddered, yet half his nature welcomed the suggestion. "I"ve done what I could, let him die," was the answer that came. Quickly the little launch began to back out from the entanglement of the rushes, and as soon as there was room George turned her and sent her out like an arrow from the lagoon to deeper, clearer water. Beyond a certain point of rock the _Bella Cuba_ should lie by this time, and once on board her all might yet be well, for she could easily show her heels to anything that walked the sea in these waters.
They headed straight for the place where they hoped to find the yacht waiting, and with an exclamation Trent pointed to the sky, across which floated a black, gauzy scarf of smoke.
"Ripping old chap, Captain Gorst," chuckled George. "That"s his signal.
Trust him to be where he"s wanted on time and a bit before."
But Roger was silent. There was a thought in his mind with which he could not darken George"s mood by speaking out. Sufficient for the moment was the evil thereof.
They were close to the jutting rock now, and it seemed within ten minutes of safety. But something shot into sight round the point, something big, and black, and swift, with a gleam of fiery eyes and a belching stream of smoke streaked with fire.
"By thunder!" stammered George. "It"s not the _Cuba_. It"s the Government boat, coming down on us. We"re trapped, sure as fate."
The words rang in Maxime Dalahaide"s ears and reached his dimmed consciousness. The danger was not for him alone, but for the others who were risking everything to save him. It was this thought which seemed to grip him, and shake him into sudden animation. He sat up, resting on one elbow, not even wincing at the grinding pain that gnawed within the lips of his re-opened wound.
"Not trapped yet," he said. "Keep to the right; to the right--not too far out. She daren"t come where we are, for she"d be ripped to pieces on the reef, and she knows that."
"Hark! They"ve spotted us. She"s hailing!" cried Roger Broom.
"_Halte! halte!_" came harshly across the moonlit s.p.a.ce of water, as, obedient to Dalahaide"s quick hint, the course of the launch was changed.
The three fugitives were mute, and again a raucous cry broke the silence of the sea.
"Halt, or we fire!"
"They"ve two cannon," said Maxime. "I was mad to bring this on you, my friends. If they fire----"
"Let them fire, and be hanged to them!" grumbled George Trent. "Two can play at that game. In heaven"s name, where"s the yacht? Ah--you _would_, would you!"
This in answer to a shot that, with a red blaze and a loud report, came dancing across the water, churning up spray and missing the launch by a man"s length.
"Keep her going, George," said Roger as quietly as was his wont. "Our hope"s in speed now, and dodging, till the _Bella Cuba_ takes a part in this game."
As if the calling on her name had conjured her like a spirit from the "vasty deep," the graceful form of the yacht came into sight. George, tingling with the joyous l.u.s.t of the battle, could not resist a hurrah; but his shout was deadened by the din of another shot, and then an answering roar from the _Bella Cuba_. One of those cannon of hers had "paid for its keep" at last. Now the yacht, and every one on board her--to say nothing of the three who wished to be on board--were in for a penny, in for a pound.
The act just committed was an offense against law and justice (not always the same) and joined hands with piracy. To be caught meant punishment the most severe for all, possibly even international complications. If the French prison-boat sunk the yacht and the launch, and drowned every soul concerned in this mad adventure, she would be within her rights, and the fugitives knew it well. The _Bella Cuba_ had flung the red rag into the face of the bull, and Roger Broom and George Trent thought they saw Virginia"s hand in the unhesitating challenge. Captain Gorst might have thought twice before a.s.suring himself that the time had come to obey orders given in case of dire necessity; but once would be enough for Virginia.
"She"s given herself away!" laughed George, keeping the launch between the lagoon and an irregular line of dark horns which, rising just above the shining surface of the water, marked a group of coral reefs. "There won"t be much doubt in Johnny c.r.a.paud"s mind now as to what part that tidy little craft"s cast to play in this show, eh? h.e.l.lo-o!"
Another blaze and a following roar drew the exclamation; but before George had had time to draw breath after it, he and Roger and Maxime were all three in the water. The ball from the little cannon of the prison-boat had done its work better this time, striking the electric launch on her nose and shattering her to pieces.
George Trent was a brave man, but his first thought was "Sharks!" and the horror of it caught his throat with a sensation of nausea. The instinct of self-preservation is strong in all healthy men, and, though an instant later he was ashamed on realizing it, the fear that thrilled him was for himself. He expected, as his momentarily scattered senses told him what had happened and where he was, to feel huge teeth, sharp as scythes, meet round his thigh and cut off a leg as cleanly as a surgeon"s knife.
While he still quivered with this living horror, he remembered that the danger was Roger"s and Maxime"s as well as his, and manhood and unselfishness came back. He forgot himself in his fear for them, more especially for Maxime--poor Maxime, who had suffered so much that it would be hard indeed if he were to meet a ghastly death in the very act of achieving safety and freedom. Madeleine"s beautiful, tragic face rose, clear as a star, before his eyes, and he knew that it would be reward enough for him if he could give his life for the brother she loved so well. If she should say afterward, "Poor fellow, he died that you might live, Maxime," he felt that the words and the grat.i.tude in the girl"s heart would warm him even, if his grave were to be under these dark waters at the other end of the world.
He had gone down at first, and a hundred thoughts seemed to have spun themselves in his head by the time he rose to the surface. Shaking the water out of his eyes, he looked anxiously round for Roger and Maxime.
They were nowhere to be seen, and a pang shot through George Trent"s breast like a dagger of ice. What if one or both of them had already met the terrible fate which he had pictured for himself?
His whole soul was so concentrated upon this fear that for a few seconds he was deaf and blind to everything outside; but suddenly he realized that the firing between the yacht and the Government boat was still going on, a further cannonade which woke strange echoes over the water.
"Roger--Dalahaide!" he called. No answer came, but, as his eyes strained through the haze of moonlight, a dark dot appeared on the bright mirror of the sea, moving fast, and a cry was raised which, though not loud, carried clearly, and seemed to George Trent the most terrible he had ever heard:
"A shark--a shark!"
CHAPTER X
"ONCE ON BOARD THE LUGGER"
It was Roger Broom"s voice which sent across the water that ominous shout so appalling to Trent"s ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.
That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he could not go back to Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.
His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to his companions, would make a meal of him, and whether it would hurt much, or if unconsciousness would come soon. Mechanically he swam on, more or less in the direction of the _Bella Cuba_ and the French boat, which were at close quarters now; and perhaps there was a scarcely defined hope in his heart that a stray shot might finish him before the hideous "guardians of the Ile Nou" found their chance.
The state of his own brain and nerves became a matter of cold surprise to him; the suspense without fear, though tingling with physical dread, and the capacity for separation of emotions. He found himself thinking of Virginia, and pitying her. This would break her heart, he told himself.
She would have a morbid feeling that she was to blame for the disaster; that she had caused the death of her brother and cousin, and the other man so strangely important in her life of late. He wished that he might talk to her, and tell her not to mind, because it was not in the least her fault, and she had done nothing but good.