night-drivin' ain't good for my complexion."

"My boy's up there," Habert said.

"Well, he's bigger'n I am, and I reckon he can take care of himself."

"And there's a woman there--Miss Drexel," Davies said quietly.

"Who? Miss Drexel? Why didn't you say so at first!" Peter demanded
grievedly. He sighed and added, "Well, climb in an' make a start. Better
get your Dutch friends to donate me about twenty gallons of gasoline if
you want to get anywhere."

* * * * *

"Won't do you no good to lay low," Peter Tonsburg remarked, as, at full
speed, headed up river, the _Topila's_ searchlight stabbed them.
"High or low, if one of them shells hits in the vicinity--_good
night_!"

Immediately thereafter the _Topila_ erupted. The roar of the
_Chill's_ exhaust nearly drowned the roar of the guns, but the
fragile hull of the craft was shaken and rocked by the bursting shells.
An occasional bullet thudded into or pinged off the _Chill_, and,
despite Peter's warning that, high or low, they were bound to get it if
it came to them, every man on board, including Peter, crouched, with
chest contracted by drawn-in shoulders, in an instinctive and purely
unconscious effort to lessen the area of body he presented as a target
or receptacle for flying fragments of steel.