Dick in the water was a fish. To get close to the boat, and, treading water or even floating, loose the arrow at short range, was his object. He was no longer a man nor a human being, but implacable enmity, reasonless energy directed by hate.
Rantan and Carlin had fired before they saw what was coming, a head, an arm half submerged and a bow skittering along the water. Carlin’s jaws snapped together, he tried to extract the cartridge case from his gun, fumbled and failed.
Rantan, less rattled and quicker with his fingers, extracted and reloaded, aimed and fired and missed.
“Fire, you damned fool,” he said to the other, but the game was lost—Carlin was at the anchor rope, the memory of the four dead men on the beach slain by the poisoned arrows of Karolin had him in its grip as it had the other, who with one last glance at the coming terror dropped his gun and seized an oar.
They were beaten, put to flight—if only for the moment.
