night would be my eyelids--"
An abrupt sound startled him. Off to the right he heard it, and his
ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Again he heard the
sound, and again. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a
gun three times.
Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He
strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but
it was like trying to see through a blanket. He leaped upon the rail and
balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a
rope, was knocked from his mouth. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry
came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost
his balance. The cry was pinched off short as the blood-warm waters of
the Caribbean Sea dosed over his head.
He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from
the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his
open mouth made him gag and strangle. Desperately he struck out with
strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped
before he had swum fifty feet. A certain coolheadedness had come to him;
it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. There was a
chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but
that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He
wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. The
lights of the yacht became faint and ever-vanishing fireflies; then they
were blotted out entirely by the night.
Rainsford remembered the shots. They had come from the right, and
doggedly he swam in that direction, swimming with slow, deliberate
strokes, conserving his strength. For a seemingly endless time he fought
the sea. He began to count his strokes; he could do possibly a hundred
more and then--
Rainsford heard a sound. It came out of the darkness, a high screaming
sound, the sound of an animal in an extremity of anguish and terror.
He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to;
with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He heard it again; then it
was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato.
"Pistol shot," muttered Rainsford, swimming on.
Ten minutes of determined effort brought another sound to his ears--the
most welcome he had ever heard--the muttering and growling of the sea
breaking on a rocky shore. He was almost on the rocks before he saw
them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them.
With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters.
